First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adjudged to be worthy of the status by virtue of the standard of the competing teams. Matches must allow for the teams to play two innings each, although in practice a team might play only one innings or none at all.
William Clifford was an English cricketer who played for Kent county teams between 1834 and 1841. He was a right-handed batsman and a slow bowler who often fielded as a wicket-keeper.
Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Kent teams have played top-class cricket since the early 18th century, and the club has always held first-class status. The current Kent County Cricket Club was formed on 6 December 1870 following the merger of two representative teams. Kent have competed in the County Championship since the official start of the competition in 1890 and have played in every top-level domestic cricket competition in England. The club's limited overs team is called the Kent Spitfires after the Supermarine Spitfire.
The earliest definite reference to the sport of cricket is dated Monday, 17 January 1597. It is a deposition in the records of a legal case at Guildford, Surrey, regarding usage of a parcel of land. John Derrick, a coroner, testified that he had played cricket on the land when he was a boy in about 1550. Derrick's testimony is confirmation that the sport was being played by the middle of the 16th century, but its true origin is unknown. All that can be said with a fair degree of certainty is that its beginning was earlier than 1550, probably somewhere in south-east England within the counties of Kent, Sussex and Surrey. There have been suggestions that it can be traced to Flemish immigrants then resident in the area. The origin of the word cricket could derive from the Flemish word krick(-e), meaning a stick. Unlike other games with batsmen, bowlers and fielders, such as stoolball and rounders, cricket can only be played on relatively short grass, especially as the ball was delivered along the ground until the 1760s. Forest clearings and land where sheep had grazed would have been suitable places to play.
In the years from 1726 to 1750, cricket became an established sport in London and the south-eastern counties of England. In 1726, it was already a thriving sport in the south east and, though limited by the constraints of travel at the time, it was slowly gaining adherents in other parts of England, its growth accelerating with references being found in many counties. Having been essentially a rural pastime for well over a century, cricket became a focus for wealthy patrons and gamblers whose interests funded its growth throughout the 18th century.
The original London Cricket Club was formed in 1722 and was one of the foremost clubs in English cricket over the next four decades, holding important match status. It is closely associated with the Artillery Ground, where it played most of its home matches.
White Conduit Fields in Islington was an early venue for cricket and several major matches are known to have been played there in the 18th century. It was the original home of the White Conduit Club, forerunner of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). Later it was used by The Islington Albion Cricket Club, who played their last game at the ground in 1834. Maps from the time show that the cricket field was a few hundred metres north of the White Conduit House, in the land surrounding the modern Richmond Crescent, and paintings suggest it was also possibly on the adjacent field to the south at the modern Barnard Park.
Dartford Brent was an extensive area of common land on the outskirts of Dartford in Kent. Historically, it was the scene of a confrontation between King Henry VI and Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York in 1452 and in 1555 thousands of spectators were to witness the burning to death at the stake of Christopher Ward, a Dartford linen weaver, executed for his Protestant faith.
William Bullen was a leading English cricketer throughout the last quarter of the 18th century, his known career spanning the years 1773 to 1800. He was an all-rounder who probably batted right-handed. He played mainly for Kent sides although he also appeared for England XIs and a variety of other sides.
A variety of Kent county cricket teams played matches from the early 18th century until the formation of the original county club in 1842. The county's links to cricket go back further with Kent and Sussex generally accepted as the birthplace of the sport. It is widely believed that cricket was first played by children living on the Weald in Saxon or Norman times. The world's earliest known organised match was held in Kent c.1611 and the county has always been at the forefront of cricket's development through the growth of village cricket in the 17th century to representative matches in the 18th. A Kent team took part in the earliest known inter-county match, which was played on Dartford Brent in 1709.
Hampshire county cricket teams have been traced back to the 18th century but the county's involvement in cricket goes back much further than that. Given that the first definite mention of cricket anywhere in the world is dated c.1550 in Guildford, in neighbouring Surrey, it is almost certain that the game had reached Hampshire by the 16th century.
The 1747 English cricket season was the fourth season following the earliest known codification of the Laws of Cricket.
Addington Cricket Club fielded one of the strongest cricket teams in England from about the 1743 season to the 1752 season although the village of Addington is a very small place in Surrey about three miles south-east of Croydon. The team was of county strength and featured the noted players Tom Faulkner, Joe Harris, John Harris, George Jackson and Durling. The team immediately accepted the Slindon Challenge, in 1744, to play against any parish in England. The only other club to accept was Robert Colchin's Bromley.
Slindon Cricket Club was famous in the middle part of the 18th century when it claimed to have the best team in England. It was located at Slindon, a village in the Arun district of Sussex.
Woolwich Cricket Club was an English cricket club based in the town of Woolwich, Kent. It was formed sometime in the first half of the 18th century, or earlier, and its earliest known record is in 1754 when its team played two matches against the prominent Dartford Cricket Club. The club, or at least a successor of it, then played a number of matches from 1797 to 1806 against Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), Montpelier Cricket Club, Croydon Cricket Club and other leading town clubs. After playing MCC in 1806, the club disappeared from the records. Throughout the period from 1754 to 1806, Woolwich's home ground was Barrack Field, part of Woolwich Common, which remains the home ground of the Royal Artillery Cricket Club (RACC). Mainstays of the club in its "Napoleonic" period were William Ayling, John Tanner and John Ward.
Hesketh Park is a cricket ground in Dartford in Kent. The ground is the home of Dartford Cricket Club, one of the oldest cricket clubs in the United Kingdom. The ground was established at the beginning of the 20th century and has been used as a first-class cricket venue by Kent County Cricket Club.
East Kent and West Kent were titles sometimes given to two cricket teams from their respective areas of the English county of Kent which generally played in matches prior to the foundation of the official Kent County Cricket Club in the mid 19th century. West Kent teams have been recorded from 1705 but there is no known record of an East Kent team until 1781. There were seven major matches from 1781 to 1790 in which teams of this type faced each other, although there is doubt about the match titles with sources using different team names.
The earliest definite mention of cricket is dated Monday, 17 January 1597. The reference is in the records of a legal case at Guildford re the use of a parcel of land c.1550 and John Derrick, a coroner, testified that he had at that time played cricket on the land when he was a boy. Cricket may have been a children's game in the 16th century but, about 1610, the earliest known organised match was played and references from that time indicate adult participation. From then to 1725, less than thirty matches are known to have been organised between recognised teams. Similarly, a limited number of players, teams and venues of the period have been recorded.
In English cricket, the years from 1751 to 1775 are notable for the rise of the Hambledon Club and the continuing spread of the sport across England. The Laws of Cricket underwent a re-codification in 1775, including the introduction of the leg before wicket rule and the addition of the third stump to the wicket.
