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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.
Inter-county cricket matches have been played since the early 18th century, involving teams that are representative of the historic counties of England and Wales. Since the late 19th century, there have been two county championship competitions played at different levels: the County Championship, a first-class competition which involves eighteen first-class county clubs among which seventeen are English and one is from Wales; and the National Counties Championship, which involves nineteen English county clubs and one club that represents several Welsh counties.
In the 1772 English cricket season, it became normal practice to complete match scorecards and there are surviving examples from every subsequent season. Scorecards from 1772 have been found for three eleven-a-side matches in which the Hampshire county team played against an England team, and for one top-class single wicket match between Kent and Hampshire. The three Hampshire v England matches have been unofficially recognised by certain sources as first-class, although no such standard existed at the time. Prior to 1772, only four scorecards have survived, the last from a minor match in 1769.
Norfolk County Cricket Club is one of twenty minor county cricket clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Norfolk.
Suffolk County Cricket Club is one of twenty minor county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Suffolk.
Hertfordshire County Cricket Club is one of twenty minor county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Hertfordshire.
Manchester Cricket Club was founded in 1816 and was a direct forerunner of Lancashire County Cricket Club which was founded in 1864. Manchester matches are classified with first-class cricket between 1844 and 1858, after which it was superseded by the county club.
The Sheffield Cricket Club was founded in the 18th century and soon began to play a key role in the development of cricket in northern England. It was the direct forerunner of Yorkshire County Cricket Club and some of the teams fielded by Sheffield were styled Yorkshire. Sheffield generally held first-class status, depending on the quality of their opponents, from 1827 to 1855.
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 earliest known organised match was held in Kent in around 1611 and the county was always 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.
The 1787 cricket season in England is noteworthy for the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) after the opening of Thomas Lord's first ground in the parish of Marylebone, north of London. MCC soon became the sport's governing body with the new ground as its feature venue. The first match known to have been played at Lord's was on Monday, 21 May, between the White Conduit Club and a Middlesex county team. The first match known to involve a team representing MCC was against White Conduit on Monday, 30 July. Including these two, reports and/or match scorecards have survived of numerous eleven-a-side matches played in 1787. Eleven are retrospectively, but unofficially, recognised as first-class.
In the 1788 English cricket season, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) published a revised code of the Laws of Cricket, thereby confirming itself as the body in sole charge of the Laws, and taking responsibility for the sport's governance. MCC was then called "The Cricket Club at St. Marylebone", contrasting with its predecessor, the White Conduit Club of Islington, which remained active in 1788. As in 1787, their two teams played against each other at Lord's. A total of fifteen match scorecards have survived and there are brief newspaper mentions of five other matches, including two played under single wicket rules.
William Quarles (1800–1879) was an English first-class cricketer associated with Norfolk who was active in the 1820s. He also played for Suffolk. Quarles' batting style is unknown.
Norfolk county cricket teams were the teams that represented the historic county of Norfolk before the first official formation of Norfolk County Cricket Club in 1876.
Cricket must have reached Hertfordshire by the end of the 17th century. The earliest reference to cricket in the county is dated 1732 and is also the earliest reference to Essex as a county team. On Thursday, 6 July 1732, a team called Essex & Hertfordshire played London Cricket Club in a first-class match at Epping Forest "for £50 a side". The result is unknown.
Through the Napoleonic Wars, county cricket virtually died as cricket was impacted by losses of investment and manpower.
In 1726, a newspaper report named the players in a cricket match, the first time this ever happened. The players concerned were Perry of London and Piper of Hampton, who played in what is the sport's earliest known single wicket match. In addition, brief reports of two eleven-a-side matches have survived. The main story of the year, as in some earlier seasons, concerns cricket's relationship with the law, and once again the issue was non-payment of gambling debts.
In 1728, it is possible to discern the existence of an inter-county rivalry between teams representative of Kent and Sussex. A Swiss traveller in southern England recorded county cricket as "a commonplace" and wrote that it unites "the common people and men of rank". Teams of county strength were being formed as the patrons sought stronger combinations to help them in the serious, for them, business of winning wagers. Easily the most successful in 1728 was Edwin Stead whose Kent teams were "too expert" for the Sussex teams led by the 2nd Duke of Richmond and Sir William Gage.
There are signs of increasing media interest in English cricket during the summer of 1729 as reports of seven matches have survived, compared with four in each of the two previous years. Although the source information is confusing, Sir William Gage's XI achieved the earliest known innings victory when they defeated Edwin Stead's XI at Penshurst Park in August. Cricket continued to spread throughout England and is known to have reached both Gloucestershire and Norfolk in 1729; also, its popularity at the University of Oxford was attested by Dr Samuel Johnson, a student there at the time. The oldest known bat, now on display in the Kennington Oval pavilion, is dated 1729.
References
- ↑ Bowen, p.263
- 1 2 3 4 "Other Matches played by Suffolk". CricketArchive. Archived from the original on 4 October 2015. Retrieved 25 January 2013.
- ↑ Buckley, p.43
- ↑ ACS, Important Matches, pp. 14–15.
- 1 2 "First-Class Matches played by Suffolk". CricketArchive. Retrieved 25 January 2013.
Bibliography
- ACS (1981). A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709–1863. Nottingham: ACS.
- Bowen, Rowland (1970). Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. ISBN 0413-27860-3.
- Buckley, G. B. (1935). Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket. Cotterell.
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