1894 English cricket season

1894 English cricket season

← 1893 1895 →

1894 was the fifth season of County Championship cricket in England. The championship culminated in a close battle between Surrey and the 1893 champions Yorkshire. Before the round of 23 August, the two teams were tied on 10 points, with one match left to play and all other teams out of contention. Yorkshire travelled to Taunton to play Somerset and, after the first day was rained off, Somerset had to bat on a rain-affected pitch. George Hirst took seven for 32 as Somerset were dismissed for 99, but Yorkshire never got the chance to reply as the third day was rained off. Meanwhile, at Hove, Surrey's Tom Richardson and Bill Lockwood bowling Sussex out for 44 and 109 to secure victory by an innings and 15 runs, giving Surrey their fourth official title.

Although the term had been in common usage for many years, there was no clear understanding of what constituted first-class cricket. The issue was addressed in a meeting at Lord's in May and the official definition was applied from the beginning of the 1895 season. ^{[note 1]}

Honours

• County Championship – Surrey
• Wisden (Five Young Batsmen of the Season) – Bill Brockwell, Jack Brown, C B Fry, Tom Hayward, Archie MacLaren

County Championship

Main article: 1894 County Championship

Final table

County Championship 1894 – Final Standings
	Team	P	W	L	D	T	A	Pts
1	Surrey	16	13	2	0	1	0	11
2	Yorkshire	16	12	2	1	0	1	10
3	Middlesex	16	8	5	3	0	0	3
4	Lancashire	16	7	7	1	1	0	0
4	Kent	16	6	6	3	0	1	0
6	Somerset	16	6	7	3	0	0	−1
7	Nottinghamshire	16	4	8	4	0	0	−4
8	Sussex	16	3	11	2	0	0	−8
9	Gloucestershire	16	2	13	1	0	0	−11

Points system:

• 1 for a win
• 0 for a draw, a tie or an abandoned match
• -1 for a loss

Most runs in the County Championship

1894 County Championship – leading batsmen
Name	Team	Matches	Runs	Average	100s	50s
Billy Gunn	Nottinghamshire	13	851	37.00	2	5
Bill Brockwell	Surrey	16	754	34.27	3	3
Albert Ward	Lancashire	16	751	26.82	2	4
Lionel Palairet	Somerset	16	748	25.79	1	5
Frank Sugg	Lancashire	16	717	28.68	2	3

Most wickets in the County Championship

1893 County Championship – leading bowlers
Name	Team	Matches	Balls bowled	Wickets taken	Average
Arthur Mold	Lancashire	16	4094	144	11.36
Tom Richardson	Surrey	14	2951	120	11.31
John Hearne	Middlesex	16	4833	119	14.03
Walter Hearne	Kent	15	3569	99	13.35
Ted Wainwright	Yorkshire	15	2617	97	10.17

Overall first-class statistics

Leading batsmen

1893 English cricket season – leading batsmen
Name	Team(s)	Matches	Runs	Average	100s	50s
Bill Brockwell	Players, South of England, Surrey	32	1491	38.23	5	6
Bobby Abel	Players, South of England, Surrey	31	1447	34.45	4	6
Jack Brown	North of England, Yorkshire	31	1399	30.41	3	8
WG Grace	Gentlemen, Gloucestershire, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), South of England	27	1293	29.38	3	5
Albert Ward	Lancashire, North of England, Players	28	1176	25.02	2	6

Leading bowlers

1893 English cricket season – leading bowlers
Name	Team(s)	Matches	Balls bowled	Wickets taken	Average
Arthur Mold	England, Lancashire, North of England, Players	28	6493	207	12.30
Tom Richardson	Surrey	23	4669	196	10.32
John Hearne	Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), Middlesex, Players, South of England	31	7430	195	14.04
Edward Wainwright	North of England, Players, Yorkshire	28	5438	166	12.73
Bill Lockwood	Players, South of England, Surrey	28	4472	150	14.88

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

• James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual (Red Lilly), Lillywhite, 1895
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack , 1895

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.