1758 English cricket season

1758 English cricket season

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Details have survived of one eleven-a-side match in the 1758 English cricket season, and one notable single wicket match. ^{[note 1]}

The reduction in the number of matches was mainly due to the Seven Years' War. Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket records a number of parish games: e.g., Saffron Walden v Cambridge; Faversham v Tenterden; Faversham v Dover; New Romney v Ashford. The presence of these and the absence of "great matches" suggests a lack of investment and resource in the game during wartime with the sport falling back onto its parish roots. ^[3]

Cricket Scores 1730 – 1773 records a "fives" game on Kennington Common in August. Tom Faulkner, one of the Harrises and three more of the London Cricket Club defeated five players from various Surrey clubs by three wickets. ^[4]

Matches

date	match title	venue	result	source
16 & 17 August (W-Th)	London & Surrey v Kent [3]	Artillery Ground?	London & Surrey won	[5]
notes	The venue is uncertain and it is possible a return game took place at any of about five venues but the report in the General Evening Post (three weeks later) is very ambiguous.

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. H. T. Waghorn, Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730-1773), Blackwood, 1899
5. ACS, Important Matches, p. 23.

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. (1935). Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket. Cotterell.
• McCann, Tim (2004). Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century. Sussex Record Society.
• Waghorn, H. T. (1899). Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730–1773). Blackwood.
• 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.
• Buckley, G. B. (1937). Fresh Light on pre-Victorian Cricket. Cotterell.
• 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.
• Mote, Ashley (1997). The Glory Days of Cricket. Robson.
• Underdown, David (2000). Start of Play. Allen Lane.