1764 English cricket season

1764 English cricket season

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1764 was the 68th English cricket season since the earliest known important match was played. Details have survived of seven important eleven-a-side matches. ^{[note 1]} Chertsey and Hambledon, by now the leading teams in cricket, played each other three times.

A number of notable players are mentioned in sources for the first time, including three of the greatest 18th century players: Richard Nyren, John Small and Lumpy Stevens. The 1764 season marks the beginning of the "Hambledon Era" in earnest and it is believed to be about this time that the Hambledon Club was founded. The team must have continued to make a name for itself ever since the tri-series v Dartford Cricket Club in 1756, but there can be no doubt that the records of many matches have been lost.

Matches

date	match title	venue	result	source
23 August (Th)	Norfolk v Suffolk	Bury St Edmunds Race Course	Norfolk won	[3]
notes	This was reported in the Gazetteer & London Daily Advertiser on Tues 28 August.
28 August (Tu)	Romford v Dartford	Romford Race Course	result unknown	[3]
notes	This was announced in the Chelmsford Chronicle on Fri 24 August. Dartford was a leading club; they travelled to play an Essex team on presumably level terms, and this suggests that playing standards in Essex were good at this time.
10 & 11 September (M-Tu)	Chertsey v Hambledon	Laleham Burway	Hambledon won by 4 wkts	[4] [5]
notes	The team scores were: Chertsey 48 and 127; Hambledon 76 and 100-6. The stakes were £20 a side. The Hambledon team is believed to have been: Richard Nyren (captain), John Small, Peter Stewart, William Hogsflesh, William Barber, John Bayton, Osmond, John Woolgar, Edward Woolgar, Thomas Ridge and Squire Thomas Land. Hambledon at this time was sometimes referred to as "Squire Land’s Club". Chertsey is believed to have had three given men from Dartford, perhaps including John Frame. Thomas "Daddy" White and Edward "Lumpy" Stevens may have played for Chertsey. John Edmeads and Thomas Baldwin certainly did for they shared a partnership of 40. [6] At the end of Monday’s play, Chertsey had scored 115 in their second innings (wickets unknown) and so led by 87. They added 12 in the morning and Hambledon needed exactly 100 to win. They scored them after being 4-3! [5] Ashley Mote remarks that Richard Nyren travelled to this match leaving a six-months pregnant wife at home (at least, it is assumed she stayed at home!) for the author of The Cricketers of My Time, John Nyren, was born in December. [6]
10 September (M)	Suffolk v Norfolk	Scole Common	Suffolk won	[4] [7]
notes
12 September (W)	Suffolk v Norfolk	Scole Common	Suffolk won	[4] [7]
notes	The source reports these together and says Suffolk won (both?) "with the greatest of ease".
17 & 18 September (M-Tu)	Hambledon v Chertsey	Broadhalfpenny Down?	Chertsey won by 2 wkts	[4] [3]
notes	The return match to the one a week earlier and it was probably at Hambledon but this is not certain. There are references in the Whitehall Evening Post and the St James Chronicle both before and after the game.
21 September (F)	Arundel v East Sussex	Henfield Common	Arundel won by 2 wkts	[8]
notes	Reported in the Sussex Weekly Advertiser on Monday, 24 September.
24 September (M)	Chertsey v Hambledon	venue unknown	result unknown	[4] [3]
notes	The two clubs apparently agreed to stage a decider but it is not known if it ever took place.

First mentions

Noted players whose names appear in the sources for the first time were:

• Thomas Baldwin (Chertsey)
• William Barber (Hambledon/Hampshire)
• John Bayton (Hambledon/Hampshire)
• William Hogsflesh (Hambledon/Hampshire)
• Thomas Land (Hambledon/Hampshire)
• Richard Nyren (Hambledon/Hampshire)
• Thomas Ridge (Hambledon/Hampshire)
• John Small (Hambledon/Hampshire)
• Lumpy Stevens (Chertsey/Surrey)
• Peter Stewart (Hambledon/Hampshire)

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, Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730-1773), Blackwood, 1899
6. Ashley Mote, The Glory Days of Cricket, Robson, 1997
7. H. T. Waghorn, The Dawn of Cricket, Electric Press, 1906
8. Buckley, FLPVC, p. 4.

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.
• Mote, Ashley (1997). The Glory Days of Cricket. Robson.
• 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.
• Haygarth, Arthur (1862). Scores & Biographies, Volume 1 (1744–1826). Lillywhite.
• 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.