1755 English cricket season

1755 English cricket season

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Details have survived of three eleven-a-side matches in the 1755 English cricket season, and two notable single wicket matches. ^{[note 1]} A Cambridge University team played matches against Eton College.

Matches

date	match title	venue	result	source
3 June (Tu)	Cambridge University v Eton [3]	Cambridge	Cambridge University won	[4]
notes	Cricket at Cambridge University was first mentioned in 1710.
5 June (Th)	Cambridge University v Eton [3]	Cambridge	Cambridge University won	[4]
notes	These are the first matches we know of that were played by a team representing the University. It is not clear if the Eton team was past or present pupils or both. From a comment made by the Public Advertiser, it would seem that the teams met in 1754 also and that Eton won.
10 July (Th)	Hampton v Kingston [5]	Hampton Court Green	Hampton won by 3 wkts
notes	Kingston scored 95 and 50; Hampton scored 72 and 65-7. Play was delayed for an hour by rain after Hampton’s first innings ended. Odds were "a guinea to a crown on the Kingston side and at last as much on the Court side"!
21 July (M)	London v Waltham [3]	Artillery Ground	result unknown	[4]
notes	The game was pre-announced by the Daily Advertiser on Sat 19 July.
8 August (F)	London v Middlesex & Surrey [5]	Artillery Ground	London won by 20 runs	[4]
notes	The match was described as "so long depending" which suggests it may have been postponed. Only the result and venue are known. Tom Faulkner, Joe Harris and John Frame all played for London as given men.

Single wicket

Thursday, 26 June. A "fives" match on Kennington Common in which London defeated Eton & Windsor by 8 runs. London scored 13 and 22; Eton & Windsor scored 11 and 16. London's team was Perry, Little Bennett and Tall Bennett, Capon and Clowder. ^[5]

Monday, 28 July. Joe Harris and another London player against two Surrey players at the Artillery Ground. Result unknown. ^[3]

Other events

The Daily Advertiser announced on Thursday, 12 June that on Monday next, 16 June, the Duke of Cumberland (aka the Butcher) would review Lt. Gen. Cholmondeley’s Regiment of Dragoons upon Datchet Common, Bucks. After the review a cricket match was to be played for a considerable sum of money. ^[6]

Thursday, 28 August. An horrific injury to a player who had his right eye "knocked out by a ball". The game was on Kennington Common but no other information was reported. ^[5]

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. G. B. Buckley, Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket, Cotterell, 1935
4. ACS, Important Matches, p. 23.
5. H. T. Waghorn, The Dawn of Cricket, Electric Press, 1906
6. Buckley, FLPVC, p. 2.

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.
• Buckley, G. B. (1937). Fresh Light on pre-Victorian Cricket. Cotterell.
• Buckley, G. B. (1935). Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket. Cotterell.
• Waghorn, H. T. (1906). The Dawn of Cricket. Electric Press.
• Wilson, Martin (2005). An Index to Waghorn. Bodyline.

Further reading

• Altham, H. S. (1962). A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914). George Allen & Unwin.
• Birley, Derek (1999). A Social History of English Cricket. Aurum.
• Bowen, Rowland (1970). Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development. Eyre & Spottiswoode.
• McCann, Tim (2004). Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century. Sussex Record Society.
• Major, John (2007). More Than A Game. HarperCollins.
• Maun, Ian (2011). From Commons to Lord's, Volume Two: 1751 to 1770. Martin Wilson. ISBN   978-0-9569066-0-1.
• Underdown, David (2000). Start of Play. Allen Lane.
• Waghorn, H. T. (1899). Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730–1773). Blackwood.