Great Cricket Matches 1772-1800: The Players and The Records

A Note on Match Classification This book takes as its starting-point the 237 matches between 1772 and 1800 classified as ‘great matches’ by the ACS. The ACS explained its decisions in the preface to Great Cricket Matches 1772-1800 , to which reference should be made for a full discussion of the issues involved. Much of the classification was straightforward because it concerned matches of types that are considered first-class to this day — representative, inter-county and between select elevens — but there follows a brief summary of issues concerning other teams. Berkshire: See under Oldfield/Berkshire. Brighton : This team enjoyed a fleeting presence in great matches — one game in 1791 and five in 1792 — but the results are good and the matches are included. Chertsey : Although clearly the leading club in Surrey at this period, Chertsey is significantly weaker than the county side and its matches are generally excluded from the ACS list. However, the 1778 match v England (barring Hampshire) is a special case. Chertsey fields virtually a full Surrey team (Thomas White, of Reigate, is the only major absentee) and England also includes some outstanding players alongside some lesser lights so this particular Chertsey match is included. East Kent v West Kent : There are eight matches in this category, some of which are billed as matches between the various sponsors, the Duke of Dorset, Sir Horatio Mann or Stephen Amherst. Although the majority of the players involved are from Kent, the teams are reinforced by a number of leading cricketers from outside the county. Even the lesser players are usually recognised Kent cricketers on the fringe of the county side. They were evidently serious contests, one lasting five days and another four, while a Coxheath game in 1789 was important enough for the England XIII v Hampshire encounter to be suspended to allow players to take part. On balance, therefore, these are included as great matches. Similarly, the ACS nineteenth century list includes two matches, Gentlemen of Nottinghamshire v Players of Nottinghamshire in 1842 and 1844, on the basis that the Gentlemen are strengthened by leading players from outside the county. Essex : See under Hornchurch/Essex. Gentlemen of Kent : The founding of the Canterbury Week in 1842 introduced the Gentlemen of Kent v Gentlemen of England match as a regular series, with the away game staged at Lord’s. These fixtures were always rated among the most important of the season and though other county gentlemen’s matches as a whole are omitted from the ACS nineteenth-century classification, these Kent ones are included in line with contemporary opinion. By analogy, six earlier nineteenth-century Gentlemen of Kent matches v MCC and Gentlemen of England are also included. In four of these, Kent had professional reinforcement, which makes them a close parallel to its 1791 game v MCC; this match is therefore included in the eighteenth-century list. Two Gentlemen of Kent matches against the White Conduit Club in 1785 are excluded as the all-amateur teams are weak and only a handful of the players appear in major matches included by the ACS. Hornchurch/Essex : This team lost to Middlesex in 1787 as well as in three matches against a combined White Conduit Club and Moulsey Hurst side in the same year. From 1789 it played regularly with reasonable results against MCC teams and met Kent home and away in 1792. Its results in 1793 and the standard of MCC opposition were probably better than at any previous time but ironically this was its final year. It is the most marginal of the teams of the period but on balance its matches against WCC/Moulsey Hurst, MCC, Middlesex and Kent are included in the list. 5