1869 English cricket season

Cricket season review March 2015 March 2020 1868 1868 English cricket season 1870 1870 English cricket season The 1869 English cricket season was the sixth since the legalisation of overarm bowling. The Cambridgeshire club went into demise, though a team called Cambridgeshire later played in two specially arranged matches, in 1869 against Yorkshire and in 1871 against Surrey. After that, Cambridgeshire ceased to be a first-class team. The problem was attributed to the lack of available amateurs to back up the famous trio of Bob Carpenter, the first Tom Hayward and George Tarrant, along with the absence of useful patronage and the difficulty of obtaining membership which led to a debt deemed unpayable.Baily’s Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, Volume 16 (1869); p. 246 1869 was also the season when W. G. Grace began a record-setting run of batting triumphs. For the first of three consecutive seasons, he established a new record for most runs in a season, and his six centuries doubled the previous record.note status Some eleven-a-side matches played from 1772 to 1863 have been rated "first-class" by certain sources.https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Seasons/Seasonal_Averages/ENG/1772_f_Match_List.html First-Class matches in England in 1772 CricketArchive 29 November 2025 subscription 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.Wisden Preston Hubert Hubert Preston Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 85th Sporting Handbooks Ltd London 1948 813 851705816 Matches of a similar standard since the beginning of the 1864 season are generally considered to have an unofficial first-class status.ACS 1982 4–5 Pre-1864 matches which are included in the ACS' "Important Match Guide" may generally be regarded as top-class or, at least, historically significant.ACS 1981 1–40 For further information, see First-class cricket. Playing record (by county) County Played Won Lost Drawn Cambridgeshire 1 0 1 0 Kent 7 4 2 1 Lancashire 4 2 2 0 Middlesex 2 1 1 0 Nottinghamshire 6 5 1 0 Surrey 12 3 7 2 Sussex 7 1 5 1 Yorkshire 5 4 1 0Hampshire a a Wynne-Thomas, Peter; The Rigby A-Z of Cricket Records; p. 53 072701868X Leading batsmen (qualification 15 innings) 1869 English season leading batsmenFirst Class Batting in England in 1869 Name Team Matches Innings Not outs Runs Highest score Average 100s 50sWG Grace Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) 15 24 1 1320 180 57.39 6 3Roger Iddison LancashireYorkshire 9 15 5 353 112 35.30 1 0Harry Jupp Surrey 22 41 5 1129 106 not out 31.36 2 7Isaac Walker Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC)Middlesex 12 18 0 540 90 30.00 0 5Henry Charlwood Sussex 10 18 1 483 155 28.41 1 2 Leading bowlers (qualification 800 balls) 1869 English season leading bowlersFirst Class Bowling in England in 1869 Name Team Balls bowled Runs conceded Wickets taken Average Best bowling 5 wicketsin innings 10 wicketsin matchThomas Hearne Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) 1614 439 47 9.34 6/12 4 0George Freeman Yorkshire 2161 584 60 9.73 8/29 6 2William Hickton Lancashire 1301 448 39 11.48 6/27 5 2Tom Emmett Yorkshire 2169 721 60 12.01 9/23 7 2Jem Shaw NottinghamshireAll England Eleven 2633 810 65 12.46 8/20 9 3 Notable events 3 June: Although Parr, Carpenter and Hayward declined to play, the schism between the northern and southern professionals ended and the North v South match resumed at Kennington Oval. Freeman and Wootton were too good for the South, who lost by nine wickets on a pitch ruined by a very wet May.Hadley Centre Ranked England and Wales Precipitation 23 and 24 June: Charles Francis takes 17 for 40 for Rugby against Marlborough on a typically rough Lord's pitch,Marlborough college v Rugby School in 1869 the best bowling figures in a public school game. Although he played no first-class cricket before 1870, in a review in 1919 when Greville Stevens played for the Gentlemen as a schoolboy, Francis was described as one of only five public school bowlers between 1840 and 1914public b b good enough for the Gentlemen.Pardon, Sydney H. (editor); John Wisden’s Cricketers' Almanac; Fifty-Seventh Edition (1920); part I, pp. 278–279 13 July: Tom Emmett becomes the first bowler to take sixteen wickets during a single day in first-class cricket, when against the dying Cambridgeshire club he takes 16 for 38 on a cut-up wicket described as "about as serviceable for cricket as a ploughed field".Baily’s Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, Volume 17 (1869); p. 95 This feat has since been accomplished by James Southerton, Thomas Wass (twice), Bert Vogler, Colin Blythe, Jack White, Hedley Verity and Tom Goddard (the last to do so in 1939).Frindall, Bill (editor); The Wisden Book of Cricket Records (Fourth Edition); p. 255. 0747222037 16 and 17 July: The Gentlemen of the South, scoring 553 against the Players of the South, achieve the highest total in first-class cricket, beating the four-year-old MCC record of 523Webber, Roy; The Playfair Book of Cricket Records; p. 18. Published 1951 by Playfair Books W.G. Grace and Bransby Cooper achieved a first-wicket record of 283 runs, which was not beaten until Herbie Hewett and Lionel Palairet scored 346 for Somerset against Yorkshire in 1892. 11 August: W.G. Grace becomes the first first-class cricketer to score a century before lunch on the first day, when he hits up 116 for the MCC against Kent.Frindall (editor); The Wisden Book of Cricket Records; p. 131 Only John Sewell three seasons before had previously accomplished the feat on any day. In the process he beats Thomas Humphrey's 1865 record aggregate – Grace would set a new record in both 1870 and 1871. Labels Hampshire a aHampshire, though regarded until 1885 as first-class, played no inter-county matches between 1868 and 1869 or 1871 and 1874 public b bThe others were Allan Steel in 1877, Sammy Woods in 1886, Charlie Townsend in 1895 and Jack Crawford in 1904 and 1905 Notes note References Bibliography ACS Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709–1863 1981 ACS Nottingham https://archive.acscricket.com/online_library/match_guides/bi_imp_match_guide/index.html 85045528 ACS 1982 A Guide to First-class Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles ACS Nottingham https://archive.acscricket.com/online_library/match_guides/bi_match_guide/index.html 10586869 Warner Pelham Pelham Warner Lords: 1787–1945 1946 Harrap London 877106024 Annual reviews John Lillywhite's Cricketer's Companion (Green Lilly), Lillywhite, 1871 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1871 Further reading Altham H. S. Harry Altham E. W. Swanton E. W. Swanton A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914) 5th 1962 George Allen & Unwin London 894274808 Birley Derek Derek Birley A Social History of English Cricket 1999 Aurum Press London 978-18-54107-10-7 https://archive.org/details/socialhistoryofe0000birl_d1n5 Internet Archive Bowen Rowland Rowland Bowen Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development 1970 Eyre & Spottiswoode London 978-04-13278-60-9 Major John John Major More Than A Game 2007 HarperCollins London 978-00-07183-64-7 https://archive.org/details/morethangamestor0000majo_b8t0 Internet Archive Category:1869 in English cricket Category:English cricket seasons in the 19th century