Great Cricket Matches 1772-1800

Kent went on to win the second match by six wickets, thus proving, at least to the satisfaction of the poem’s unidentified author, that in a fair contest on level ground KENT can conquer, if they please. The poem has been quoted at some length because of what it reveals about the controversy arising from the Bishopsbourne match. It is reasonable to speculate that this was a factor in a significant change in the new version of the Laws issued the following year, which dispensed with the toss in most cases and provided instead that the visiting team ‘shall have the choice of the innings and the pitching of the wickets, which shall be pitched within thirty yards of a centre fixed by the adversaries’. It is also worth pointing out the context of the famous line about ‘Lumpy’ Stevens’s supposed inability to pitch except ‘o’er a Brow’. This is often quoted in isolation as if it were a general statement about his bowling technique, whereas it actually occurs in the course of a partisan poem by an aggrieved Kent supporter arguing that Surrey had won a match by unfairly pitching the wickets on uneven ground. Despite the tendentious nature of both poems, it is notable that the details of play, so far as they can be checked, are exactly reflected in the surviving scores. This lends credibility to the many additional details the poems supply. At Bishopsbourne: Surrey won the toss. Palmer and Stone opened the batting in Surrey (1), and Stone was first out; play was interrupted by bad weather; Lewis played despite illness; and Wood of Kent suffered some unspecified, but apparently serious, foot injury. Surrey Triumphant confirms the identity of W.Bartholomew (‘I a vicar’s son’: William was the son of the Rev Charles Bartholomew of Chertsey). The Kentish Cricketers refers to Stevens’s bowling prowess and then specifically mentions Miller, Simmons, Louch and May. Why these four? The score tells us that Stevens bowled Simmons and T.May; Miller and Louch were caught, so maybe Stevens was the bowler. The same poem lists the Kent players in the following order: Miller, Dorset, Simmons, Mann, Davis, Hussey, R.May, T.May, Louch, Pattenden, Wood. It is notable that the gentlemen are not listed first so this may represent the intended, or the actual, batting order: but as this is not certain, the order has been left as in the sources. The poem also mentions Davis’s skill as a wicket-keeper, but does not definitely state that he kept in this match. At Sevenoaks: Kent won the toss. Simmons then chose where to pitch the wickets, which may suggest he was captain. Note, however, that the Duke of Dorset was also playing. In Kent (1), Miller played Stevens so successfully that White was brought on to bowl instead. 275