Lives in Cricket No 17 - Fuller Pilch

matches in 1830, with Fuller outshining his future challenger. The next summer, at Lord’s, playing for England against an MCC side that included Fuller, Marsden was more successful and helped England win by an innings. Marsden did not take many wickets in any of these encounters, nor did he ever dismiss Fuller, so his bowling appeared to present no problems for the Norfolk man. But the same could be said for the bowling of Fuller as he is only recorded as bowling Marsden out once. Marsden certainly had more experience of single-wicket cricket, a version of the game that Fuller had avoided as often as possible. According to the Norwich Mercury : For years past Marsden has stood forward as the challenger of any man in England at single wicket, and his success in the West, as well as the exhibition of some excellent play at various times in London, appears to have given many good judges an opinion that at this particular game he has no equal. But others had been less impressed. Pierce Egan’s Book of Sports suggested in a poem ‘The Cricket Eleven of England’ that the talents of Marsden were less than his local supporters believed: Next Marsden may come, th’it here must be stated That his skill down at Sheffield is oft over-rated. There was no clear favourite. The Norwich Mercury reported: ‘Opinion was perhaps never so much divided amongst the avowed judges and patrons of the game as upon this match. We understand that at Lord’s Ground 5 to 4 has been betted on each champion, and on our own ground, before the match commenced we believe odds were laid both ways’. They were going to meet under single-wicket Laws which applied to just two players with no fieldsmen to assist them and batting for two innings each. Runs could only be scored from hits forward beyond a line marked at right angles extending 22 yards on either side of the single set of stumps, known as the ‘bounds’. When making a scoring hit the batsman had to have one of his feet on the ground behind the popping crease. To qualify as one run the batsman had to run and touch the single stump at the bowler’s end and return safely back to his own area. There was no wicket-keeper, so no runs could be made from byes, leg-byes or overthrows. Both men had to be extremely fit to face the prospect of spending a whole day fielding to their own bowling and, when batting, having to run two lengths of the pitch to score any runs. A quick single was going to have to be very quick indeed. Marsden won the toss and decided to bat first. Play began at mid-day and after 41 balls from Fuller he had scored seven runs from 33 hits in 36 minutes before being bowled. Fuller went in at 1 pm and Marsden began bowling fast under-arm. Despite changing to round-arm, or what the press called ‘the modern throwing style’, Fuller had reached 74 not out by 3 pm from 110 hits to 128 balls. The Norwich Mercury reported that ‘Pilch made fearless and destructive havoc with almost all that were delivered to him.’ Champion of England, Part One 37