Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence.
Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the European Cricket Council (ECC) and, until August 2005, the International Cricket Council (ICC). Lord's is widely referred to as the Home of Cricket and is home to the world's oldest sporting museum.
Colonel George Robert Canning Harris, 4th Baron Harris,, generally known as Lord Harris, was a British colonial administrator and Governor of Bombay. He was also an English amateur cricketer, mainly active from 1870 to 1889, who played for Kent and England as captain of both teams. He had a political career from 1885 to 1900 and was for much of his life a highly influential figure in cricket administration through the offices he held with Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). He was President of the Kent County Football Association between 1881 and 1908.
Martin Bladen Hawke, 7th Baron Hawke, generally known as Lord Hawke, was an English amateur cricketer active from 1881 to 1911 who played for Yorkshire and England. He was born in Willingham by Stow, near Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, and died in Edinburgh. He appeared in 633 first-class matches, including five Test matches, as a righthanded batsman, scoring 16,749 runs with a highest score of 166 and held 209 catches. He scored 13 centuries and 69 half-centuries.
Greville Thomas Scott Stevens was an English amateur cricketer who played for Middlesex, the University of Oxford and England. A leg-spin and googly bowler and attacking batsman, he captained England in one Test match, in South Africa in 1927. He was widely regarded as one of the leading amateur cricketers of his generation who, because of his commitments outside cricket, was unable to fulfil his potential and left the game early.
Sir George Oswald Browning "Gubby" Allen CBE was a cricketer who captained England in eleven Test matches. In first-class matches, he played for Middlesex and Cambridge University. A fast bowler and hard-hitting lower-order batsman, Allen later became an influential cricket administrator who held key positions in the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), which effectively ruled English cricket at the time; he also served as chairman of the England selectors.
Cambridge University Cricket Club, first recorded in 1817, is the representative cricket club for students of the University of Cambridge. Depending on the circumstances of each individual match, the club has always been recognised as holding first-class status. The university played List A cricket in 1972 and 1974 only. It has not played top-level Twenty20 cricket.
George Herbert Hirst was a professional English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 1891 and 1921, with a further appearance in 1929. One of the best all-rounders of his time, Hirst was a left arm medium-fast bowler and right-handed batsman. He played in 24 Test matches for England between 1897 and 1909, touring Australia twice. He completed the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in an English cricket season 14 times, the second most of any cricketer after his contemporary and team-mate Wilfred Rhodes. One of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year for 1901, Hirst scored 36,356 runs and took 2,742 wickets in first-class cricket. In Tests, he made 790 runs and captured 59 wickets.
This is a bibliography of literary and historical works about cricket. The list is sorted by author's name. It is inevitably highly selective. The 1984 edition of E. W. Padwick's A Bibliography of Cricket had more than 10,000 entries.
Arthur Haygarth was a noted amateur cricketer who became one of cricket's most significant historians. He played first-class cricket for the Marylebone Cricket Club and Sussex between 1844 and 1861, as well as numerous other invitational and representative teams including an England XI and a pre-county Middlesex. A right-handed bat, Haygarth played 136 games now regarded as first-class, scoring 3,042 runs and taking 19 wickets with his part-time bowling. He was educated at Harrow, which had established a rich tradition as a proving ground for cricketers. He served on many MCC committees and was elected a life member in 1864.
The University Match in a cricketing context is generally understood to refer to the annual fixture between Oxford University Cricket Club and Cambridge University Cricket Club.
All first-class cricket was cancelled in the 1940 to 1944 English cricket seasons because of the Second World War; no first-class matches were played in England after Friday, 1 September 1939 until Saturday, 19 May 1945.
1804 was the 18th season of cricket in England since the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). The first Eton v Harrow match may have been played at Lord's Old Ground.
Cricket, and hence English amateur cricket, probably began in England during the medieval period but the earliest known reference concerns the game being played c.1550 by children on a plot of land at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, Surrey. It is generally believed that cricket was originally a children's game as it is not until the beginning of the 17th century that reports can be found of adult participation.
The Eton v Harrow cricket match is an annual match between public school rivals Eton College and Harrow School. It is one of the longest-running annual sporting fixtures in the world and was the last annual school cricket match still to be played at Lord's. However, in February 2022, the MCC announced that from 2023 onwards the fixture would no longer be held at the ground. It would be replaced by the finals of boys’ and girls’ schools competitions, as stated by MCC to be more inclusive. However in September, 2022, following opposition from a section of its membership, the club decided that the match would be held at Lord's in 2023 to allow time for further consultation.
Guy Fife Earle was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Surrey and Somerset for 20 years before and after the First World War. He also played in India, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand as a member of official Marylebone Cricket Club touring teams, though he did not play Test cricket.
Captain Robert St Leger Fowler MC was an Irish first-class cricketer, often regarded as the best Irish cricketer not to have represented Ireland itself. Fowler was a right-handed batsman who bowled right-arm off break. He is perhaps best known for his outstanding all round performance as captain of Eton College in the match against Harrow in 1910, the match commonly referred to as Fowler's match.
Fowler's match is the name given to the two-day Eton v Harrow cricket match held at Lord's on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 July 1910. The match is named after the captain of Eton College, Robert St Leger Fowler, whose outstanding all round batting and bowling performance allowed Eton to win the match by 9 runs after Harrow School asked Eton to follow on 165 runs in arrears after the teams' first innings. When the ninth Eton wicket fell in their second innings, they led by only four runs, and Harrow's eventual target was just 55. Wisden stated that: "In the whole history of cricket, there has been nothing more sensational" and The Times said that "A more exciting match can hardly ever have been played", continuing effusively, with a reference to the inaugural Ashes Test at The Oval in 1882, "to boys the bowling of Fowler was probably more formidable than Spofforth's to England".
Amateur status had a special meaning in English cricket. The amateur in this context was not merely someone who played cricket in his spare time but a particular type of first-class cricketer who existed officially until 1962, when the distinction between amateurs and professionals was abolished and all first-class players became nominally professional.
Bernard James Tindal Bosanquet was an English cricketer best known for inventing the googly, a delivery designed to deceive the batsman. When bowled, it appears to be a leg break, but after pitching the ball turns in the opposite direction to that which is expected, behaving as an off break instead. Bosanquet, who played first-class cricket for Middlesex between 1898 and 1919, appeared in seven Test matches for England as an all-rounder. He was chosen as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1905.
