Great Cricket Matches 1772-1800

White Conduit Club and Marylebone Cricket Club – The key point here is that WCC/MCC is not a fixed quantity because the team was frequently reinforced with professionals, the number and quality of whom is in fact a very useful guide to contemporary opinion of how strong the opposition was expected to be. Provided account is taken of which professionals, if any, were engaged, performance against WCC/MCC is critical evidence in assessing the possible status of other teams. In its very early games against strong opposition, WCC was very heavily reinforced: in both matches against Kent in 1786 by six of the leading professionals in England; and in its matches against Essex/Hornchurch in 1787 by the Moulsey Hurst club (SB refers to the team in the Hornchurch games simply as Moulsey Hurst but contemporary evidence proves it was a joint team of WCC and Moulsey). Middlesex – This was clearly the strongest of the new counties, with far more matches over a longer period than the others. MCC almost always engaged very strong professionals when playing Middlesex. The odds employed against Hampshire and England remind us not to exaggerate the strength of Middlesex, and the early games in 1787 and 1789 appear to be weaker than the rest, but from a perspective of the period as a whole Middlesex matches clearly merit inclusion. For the distinction between Middlesex and the Thursday Club, see notes on the latter below. Berkshire/Oldfield – For the four seasons 1792-95 this team, on the whole, held its own against respectable MCC teams and it achieved a remarkable triumph by beating a good Kent side in 1794. During this period it was at least the equal of Middlesex and is included. However, earlier ‘Berkshire’ matches in 1783 and 1785 are more difficult to classify. In the 1785 game against Hornchurch, the side is full of good players, so much so that it scarcely looks like a Berkshire team at all. But it must be questionable whether Hornchurch, which is marginal even in later years as outlined below, can be considered ‘great’ in 1785. Certainly it was badly beaten 17 A match at the White Conduit, Islington, circa 1787, by an unknown artist. Frontispiece to Cricket Scores, Notes &c from 1730-1773 by H.T.Waghorn.