1863 English cricket season

1863 English cricket season

← 1862 1864 →

1863 was the 77th season of cricket in England since the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). ^{[note 1]} The foundations of three, and possibly four, county cricket clubs took place.

Important matches

• 1863 match list

Events

8 January. Foundation of Yorkshire County Cricket Club out of the Sheffield Match Fund Committee that had been established in 1861. Yorkshire played its initial first-class match v. Surrey at the Oval on 4 to 6 June. It was a rain-affected draw, evenly balanced.

12 August. Foundation of Hampshire County Cricket Club. A number of previous county organisations including the famous Hambledon Club had existed in Hampshire during the previous hundred years or more, but none had survived indefinitely.

15 December. Foundation of Middlesex County Cricket Club at a meeting in the London Tavern.

An organisation in Cheltenham is believed to have been the forerunner of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, which had definitely been founded by 1871. Exact details of the club's foundation have been lost.

Leading batsmen

Will Mortlock was the leading runscorer with 736 @ 26.28

Leading bowlers

George Wootton was the leading wicket-taker with 87 @ 9.74

Notes

1. Some eleven-a-side matches played from 1772 to 1863 have been rated "first-class" by certain sources. ^[1] However, the term only came into common use around 1864, when overarm bowling was legalised. It 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. ^[2] Matches of a similar standard since the beginning of the 1864 season are generally considered to have an unofficial first-class status. ^[3] Pre-1864 matches which are included in the ACS' "Important Match Guide" may generally be regarded as top-class or, at least, historically significant. ^[4] For further information, see First-class cricket.

References

1. "First-Class matches in England in 1772" . CricketArchive. Retrieved 29 November 2025.
2. Wisden (1948). Preston, Hubert (ed.). Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (85th ed.). London: Sporting Handbooks Ltd. p. 813. OCLC   851705816.
3. ACS 1982, pp. 4–5.
4. ACS 1981, pp. 1–40.

Bibliography

• ACS (1981). A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709–1863. Nottingham: ACS. OCLC   85045528.
• ACS (1982). A Guide to First-class Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles. Nottingham: ACS. OCLC   10586869.
• Warner, Pelham (1946). Lords: 1787–1945. London: Harrap. OCLC   877106024.

Annual reviews

• Fred Lillywhite, The Guide to Cricketers, Lillywhite, 1864
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack , 1864

Further reading

• Altham, H. S.; Swanton, E. W. (1962). A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914) (5th ed.). London: George Allen & Unwin. OCLC   894274808.
• Birley, Derek (1999). A Social History of English Cricket. London: Aurum Press. ISBN   978-18-54107-10-7 – via Internet Archive.
• Bowen, Rowland (1970). Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. ISBN   978-04-13278-60-9.
• Major, John (2007). More Than A Game. London: HarperCollins. ISBN   978-00-07183-64-7 – via Internet Archive.

External links

• CricketArchive – season summaries