Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

First-class cricket: Fifties (27) Score For Opponent Venue Season 56 England² Yorks, Notts and Leics Sheffield 1828 70* Suffolk¹ MCC Lord’s 1830 50 Cambridge Town¹ MCC Lord’s 1832 87* Norfolk¹ Yorkshire Norwich 1834 73 Norfolk² Yorkshire Norwich 1834 105* England¹ Sussex Brighton 1834 153* Norfolk² Yorkshire Sheffield 1834 60 Players¹ Gentlemen Lord’s 1834 59 England¹ Kent Lord’s 1835 69* Kent² Sussex Brighton 1837 84 Sussex² England Brighton 1837 64 South¹ North Lord’s 1838 60 Kent² Sussex Brighton 1838 63 Kent² Nottinghamshire Town Malling 1840 53 Kent¹ Sussex Brighton 1841 67 Kent¹ Sussex Town Malling 1841 98 Kent¹ England Canterbury 1842 60 England¹ Nottinghamshire Trent Bridge 1842 57* Kent¹ England Canterbury 1843 50 Gents of Notts¹ Players of Notts Trent Bridge 1844 54 Kent² Sussex Brighton 1845 55 Hampshire¹ MCC Brighton 1845 117 West¹ MCC Bath 1845 54 Kent¹ England Canterbury 1848 51 Kent² England Canterbury 1850 50 All England XI² MCC Lord’s 1851 54 Kent¹ Sussex Hove 1851 First-class cricket: Bowling Pilch’s bowling performances were recorded far less comprehensively than his batting. For most of his career, even in very important matches, scorers only rarely recorded details of bowlers’ performances, such as overs bowled and runs conceded. Bowlers were often not credited with wickets taken when batsmen were dismissed caught or stumped. Where details were recorded they were often not published. From time to time researchers find details of old matches, so there is still a prospect of filling in some of the many gaps. In first-class matches Pilch is currently recorded as taking a total of 142 wickets, with 96 of them coming in the five seasons 1830 to 1834, the only years when he took more than ten wickets in a season. Some 88 per cent of all his wickets, 125 in all, were recorded as bowled. If only half of his wickets were bowled, not an unreasonable assumption, then he took perhaps 250 wickets or so in first-class games. First-Class cricket: Five wickets or more in an innings (3) Bowling For Opponent Venue Season 5-? Suffolk MCC¹ Lord’s 1830 5-? Surrey England¹ Lord’s 1831 7-? L to Z A to K¹ Lord’s 1833 Note: For the reasons given in the paragraphs above the table, Pilch may have taken five wickets in an innings on other occasions. 140 Career Statistics