1771 English cricket season

Cricket season review November 2025 November 2025 1770 1770 English cricket season 1772 1772 English cricket season The earliest-known reference to cricket in Wales occurs in the 1771 English cricket season. Details of fourteen historically important eleven-a-side matches are known,note status Any match listed in the ACS' Important Match Guide (1981) is historically important, and therefore of the highest standard, whether or not a scorecard might exist. The same applies to numerous matches discovered by researchers since 1981.ACS 1981 1–40 For further information, see First-class cricket. including the Nottingham v Sheffield match in August. The season is also notable for the wide bat incident, resulting in an amendment to the Laws of Cricket which limited the maximum width of the bat to four and a quarter inches. Cricket in Wales The first definite reference to cricket in Wales, and also in the county of Glamorgan, is a letter written April 1771 by a Swansea resident to the General Evening Post. The writer was complaining about young men gathering together on the Sabbath to take part in various sports, including cricket. He went on to say that the activities were accompanied by 'an enormous use of oaths', and that local pastors must do more to restrain such profanity on 'the Lord's day'.https://www.cricketmuseum.wales/the-earliest-reference-to-cricket-actually-being-played-in-wales/ Hignell Andrew Andrew Hignell The earliest reference to cricket actually being played in Wales? The Museum of Welsh cricket Cardiff 20 October 2025 Nottingham v Sheffield Played 26/27 August on the Forest New Ground in Nottingham,ACS 1981 24 the match between the two northern town clubs of Nottingham and Sheffield was historically significant for the development of cricket in the North of England. It was an unusual match because the teams were to play three innings each. Sheffield had scored 81, 62 and 105 for a total of 248. In reply, Nottingham had scored 76 and 112 for a total of 188 with another innings in hand. However, the game ended prematurely, and was 'not determined on account of a dispute having arisen by one of the Sheffield players being jostled'.Buckley 1937 6–7 Newspaper reports mention a Sheffield batsman called Osguthorpe who 'kept in batting for several hours together'.Buckley 1937 6–7 The match is the earliest known reference to cricket in Nottinghamshire. Both town clubs were the forerunners of their eventual county clubs: Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, founded in 1841;Playfair 2025 157 and Yorkshire County Cricket Club, founded in 1863.Playfair 2025 198 England v Hambledon England played Hambledon on 12/13 August at Guildford Bason.ACS 1981 24 Hambledon scored 65 and 90; England took a sizeable first innings lead with 146, and needed only 10–0 to win the game convincingly by 10 wickets. The game was reported in the London Gazetteer on Friday, 16 August.Buckley 1937 6–7 Chertsey v Hambledon Chertsey hosted Hambledon, 23 and 24 September, on Laleham Burway.ACS 1981 24 Hambledon won by 1 run after totalling 218 in their two innings combined; Chertsey's total was 217. The stake was £50 a side, and the articles decreed that it must be played out, so it became a two-day match.Waghorn 1899 76Buckley 1935 56 Although there is no certainty about it, this match is generally reckoned to have been the one in which Thomas White, playing for Chertsey, used his extra wide bat, causing the Hambledon players to object.Andrew Hignell The Monster Bat Incident, 1771 The Journal of the Cricket Society 23 1 Autumn 2006 The Cricket Society Leighton Buzzard Whenever it happened, the incident brought about a change in the 1774 version of the Laws of Cricket wherein the maximum width of the bat was set at four and one quarter inches.Jon Hotten 2021 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 250 years of cricket bats https://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/1288758.html ESPNcricinfo 9 October 2024 A return match took place 30 September and 1 October on Broadhalfpenny Down.ACS 1981 24 Chertsey scored 117 and 126. Hambledon replied with 230 and 14 for 0 to win convincingly by 10 wickets.Waghorn 1899 76–77 Duke of Dorset v Sir Horatio Mann There is some confusion about nomenclature, but two matches were played between teams raised by the Duke of Dorset and Sir Horatio Mann.ACS 1981 24 The first was played 28 and 29 August at Bishopsbourne Paddock and was titled Bourne v Middlesex & Surrey (alternatively, Mann's XI v Dorset's XI). Middlesex & Surrey scored 66 and 25, to which Bourne replied with 53 and 37, so the counties team won by one run.Waghorn 1899 74-75 The return match took place 4 and 5 September on the Artillery Ground. One source calls this match Dorset's XI v Mann's XI,Buckley 1935 55 while another says Middlesex & Surrey v Bourne.Waghorn 1899 75 In another very close finish, Dorset's XI needed 27 to win when their penultimate wicket fell, but the last pair held on to score the runs, and gain a one wicket victory.Waghorn 1899 75Buckley 1935 55 Other events Chertsey played two matches against a combined Richmond, Hampton & Brentford team in July, but no post-match reports were found.Buckley 1935 54 A team called the Gentlemen of Sussex was active in July and August, playing three matches against the Gentlemen of Kent and two against the Gentlemen of Hampshire.ACS 1981 24 it would seem that these teams were strictly "gentlemen only", so the matches must be considered minor in status. Kent won the first match of their three, but the other two are result unknown.McCann 2004 74–75 Sussex won both their matches against Hampshire, one by 8 wickets, the other by an innings and 74 runs.McCann 2004 76–78 In August, there were two minor games at Cobham Tilt in which one of the teams was led by Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of Tankerville, a patron of Surrey in the 1770s. He was also the employer of Lumpy Stevens, who was a gardener at Tankerville's Walton-on-Thames estate. Tankerville succeeded to his title on the death of his father on 27 October 1767. This is the earliest-known mention of him in a cricketing connection.Buckley 1935 55 On 8 August, the St James Chronicle reported that a combined Middlesex, Kent & Surrey team had defeated Coulsdon by 45 runs.Buckley 1935 55 On Saturday, 16 November, a general meeting 'of the subscribers to the Broadhalfpenny Cricket Club will be held at the George Inn, at Hambledon, in order to appoint stewards and settle the plan for the ensuing year'.Waghorn 2005 34 First mentions Countries Wales Counties Glamorgan NottinghamshireBuckley 1937 6 Clubs and teams NottinghamBuckley 1937 6–7 Venues Forest New Ground, NottinghamBuckley 1937 6–7 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 Buckley G. B. G. B. Buckley Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket 1935 Cotterell & Co. Birmingham 23450280 Buckley G. B. G. B. Buckley Fresh Light on pre-Victorian Cricket 1937 Cotterell & Co. Birmingham 23469107 McCann Tim Timothy J. McCann Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century 2004 West Sussex Record Office Lewes 978-08-54450-55-8 https://www.sussexrecordsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/Digital_editions/SRS-Vol-88.pdf 88 Playfair Marshall Ian Playfair Cricket Annual Headline 2025 978-1-0354-1179-5 Waghorn H. T. H. T. Waghorn Cricket Scores, Notes, &c. From 1730–1773 Blackwood Edinburgh 1899 1086375331 Waghorn H. T. H. T. Waghorn The Dawn of Cricket J. W. McKenzie London 2005 1906 978-09-47821-17-3 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 Wilson Martin An Index to Waghorn Bodyline Books (limited edition, by subscription only) London 2005 Category:1770s in cricket Category:English cricket seasons in the 18th century Category:1771 in England Category:1770s in Wales