1736 English cricket season

1736 English cricket season

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The earliest known instance of a tie happened in the 1736 English cricket season. The occasion was a three-a-side single wicket match between London and Surrey on Lamb's Conduit Field in Holborn. The season is also notable for the first appearances in sources of the Chertsey Cricket Club and its Laleham Burway ground. Details of 20 matches are known. ^{[note 1]}

Kent v Surrey

Kent and Surrey met twice at the latter end of the season. ^[3] The first match was played 20 September on Kennington Common. Kent scored 41 and 53; Surrey replied with 71 and 24/8 to win by 2 wickets. During the match, an incident occurred in the crowd. Three soldiers apprehended a deserter but the crowd turned on them, rescued the deserter and "after a severe discipline let them go about their business". ^{[4] [5]}

The teams met again 4 October on Coxheath Common. First innings scores were level when it began to rain, though Kent still had five wickets in hand. No further play was possible, and the match ended in a draw. ^{[6] [7] [3]}

Middlesex v Surrey

Middlesex and Surrey played each other four times between 16 August and 22 September. ^[3] Middlesex won the first match on Chelsea Common by 9 runs. It was played for 50 guineas a side as reported in the General Evening Post on Tuesday, 17 August. They met again, 21 August, on Moulsey Hurst where Surrey won by 5 runs. The source says "there were about £100 to £60 for the (sic) Middlesex". ^{[8] [9]}

Middlesex and Surrey played their third match 11 September, again on Moulsey Hurst, for 50 guineas a side, and Surrey won by 2 runs. ^[9] The fourth match, due to be played 22 September on Lamb's Conduit Field, was announced the previous day in the London Evening Post , but there was no post-match report. ^[5]

London v Surrey

London and Surrey met three times. ^[3] The first on 14 July was at the Artillery Ground. A report in the General Evening Post next day says: "London beat Surrey by 30 notches and had three men to go in". This is confusing but it may mean there was a declaration of sorts in the second innings. ^[10] They met again 11 August on Barnes Common. A report in the Whitehall Evening Post on Saturday, 14 August refers to Surrey as "Barnes, Fulham and Richmond". It goes on to say that the next match on Tuesday, 17 August would be played "in the fields behind Powis House", meaning Lamb's Conduit Field in Holborn. It extends the hope that "the company will keep a good ring which was very much wanted at Barnes Common". Surrey won by 19 runs. ^[11]

After the third match, the Daily Gazetteer on Wednesday, 18 August stated that London beat Surrey by "upwards of 90 notches". The Whitehall Evening Post next day gave the scores, and repeated the report of the previous match by first referring to Surrey as "Barnes, Fulham and Richmond"; but it then talked about "the Surrey men". London scored 55 and 75; Surrey scored 31 and 13 so that London won the game by 86 runs. Two London batsmen in the second innings had a partnership of 51, which was a considerable achievement at the time, given the usual poor pitch conditions. ^{[9] [3]}

London v Mitcham

London and Mitcham played each other three times on Kennington Common. The first was on 13 May, but the result is unknown. In the second match on 22 June, London won by an unknown margin. The result of the third match on 2 September is unknown. ^{[10] [3]}

Chertsey v Croydon

There were three matches between Surrey teams Chertsey and Croydon. Knowledge of them is from an announcement in Read's Weekly Journal dated Saturday, 3 July, about a deciding game on Richmond Green to be played on Monday, 5 July. In each of the first two matches, the home team won "by a great number of runs". The first was at Duppas Hill, in Croydon. The second match, at Laleham Burway, is the first significant one known to have been played there. ^{[10] [3]}

The third match was played 5 July on Richmond Green for £50. Chertsey scored 88 and 55; Croydon replied with 58 and 25/9. Croydon with one wicket standing still needed 61 runs to win when the clock struck eight, and the game was drawn. ^{[10] [12] [3]}

London v Chertsey

The teams met 19 July at Laleham Burway, and 29 July at the Artillery Ground. A newspaper report of the first match says very large bets were laid on what became a "hard match", which London won "by a very few notches". The Chertsey team was the same eleven as played against Croydon at Richmond Green on 5 July. ^[13] In the second match, London scored 48 and 60; Chertsey made 97 and 12/2 to win by 8 wickets. ^[14]

Single wicket

A match was played Thursday, 24 June on Kennington Common in which London's Wakeland, the distiller, and George Oldner played together against two "famous" Richmond players who were "esteemed the best two in England". Unfortunately, the esteemed pair are not named, though one of them suffered serious facial injuries in the game when the ball came off his bat and hit his nose. The report rails against "human brutes" who insisted he should play on despite his injuries. ^[15]

On Wednesday, 1 September, a "threes" match on Lamb's Conduit Field, in Holborn, between London and Surrey (i.e., three players from Barnes, Fulham, and Richmond) ended in cricket's earliest known tie. Different versions of the scores have been reported, but the teams totalled 23 runs each in their two completed innings. In one version, London scored 4 and 19 against Surrey's 18 and 5; in the other, London scored 5 and 18 against Surrey's 17 and 6. ^{[16] [17]}

Other events

On 9 July, London played against Streatham Cricket Club on White Lion Fields in Streatham, but the result is unknown. This is the only reference to a Streatham team in surviving sources. ^[10]

Notes

1. Some eleven-a-side matches played before 1864 have been rated "first-class" by certain sources, but there was no such standard at the time. The term came into common use from around 1864, when overarm bowling was legalised, and was formally defined as a standard by a meeting at Lord's, in May 1894, of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and the county clubs which were then competing in the County Championship. The ruling was effective from the beginning of the 1895 season, but pre-1895 matches of the same standard have no official definition of status because the ruling is not retrospective. However, matches of a similar standard since the beginning of the 1864 season are generally considered to have an unofficial first-class status. ^[1] Pre-1864 matches which are included in the ACS' "Important Match Guide" may generally be regarded as top-class or, at least, historically significant. ^[2] For further information, see First-class cricket.

References

1. ACS 1982, pp. 4–5.
2. ACS 1981, pp. 1–40.
3. ACS 1981, p. 20.
4. Waghorn 1899, pp. 16–17.
5. Buckley 1935, p. 14.
6. Waghorn 1899, p. 17.
7. Maun 2009, p. 83.
8. Waghorn 1899, p. 16.
9. Buckley 1935, p. 13.
10. Buckley 1935, p. 12.
11. Buckley 1935, pp. 12–13.
12. Waghorn 1899, p. 14.
13. Waghorn 1899, pp. 14–15.
14. Waghorn 1899, p. 13.
15. Waghorn 1899, pp. 13–14.
16. Bowen 1970, p. 263.
17. Maun 2009, p. 81.

Bibliography

• ACS (1981). A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709–1863. Nottingham: ACS.
• ACS (1982). A Guide to First-class Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles. Nottingham: ACS.
• Bowen, Rowland (1970). Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. ISBN   978-04-13278-60-9.
• Buckley, G. B. (1935). Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket. Birmingham: Cotterell & Co. ISBN   978-19-00592-48-2.
• Maun, Ian (2009). From Commons to Lord's, Volume One: 1700 to 1750. Cambridge: Roger Heavens. ISBN   978-19-00592-52-9.
• Waghorn, H. T. (1899). Cricket Scores, Notes, &c. From 1730–1773. Edinburgh: Blackwood. ISBN   978-09-47821-17-3.

Further reading

• Altham, H. S. (1962). A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914). London: George Allen & Unwin. ASIN   B0014QE7HQ.
• Ashley-Cooper, F. S. (1929). Kent Cricket Matches, 1719–1880. Gibbs & Sons.
• Birley, Derek (1999). A Social History of English Cricket. London: Aurum Press. ISBN   978-18-54106-22-3.
• Buckley, G. B. (1937). Fresh Light on pre-Victorian Cricket. Birmingham: Cotterell & Co. ISBN   978-19-00592-49-9.
• Major, John (2007). More Than A Game. London: HarperCollins. ISBN   978-00-07183-64-7.
• McCann, Tim (2004). Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century. Lewes: Sussex Record Society. ISBN   978-08-54450-55-8.
• Underdown, David (2000). Start of Play. Westminster: Allen Lane. ISBN   978-07-13993-30-1.
• Waghorn, H. T. (1906). The Dawn of Cricket. London: Electric Press. ISBN   978-09-47821-17-3.
• Wilson, Martin (2005). An Index to Waghorn. Bodyline Books.