1888 English cricket season

Cricket season review March 2015 August 2020 1887 1887 English cricket season 1889 1889 English cricket season The 1888 English cricket season was the 25th since the legalisation of overarm bowling. There was a complete contrast to the previous sunlit summer with its record-breaking run-getting: this time the summer was exceptionally coolHadley Center Central England Temperature and wet,Hadley Center England and Wales Precipitation resulting in the dominance of bowlers with many records for wicket-taking set. Australia toured England to compete for the Ashes. It was the 12th test series between the two teams.Wynne-Thomas Peter The Hamlyn A-Z of Cricket Records 1983 Hamlyn Publishing Group 0-600-34667-6 After a run of disastrous results over a number of seasons, Derbyshire was demoted from first-class status and first-class county cricket was now played by only eight teams: Gloucestershire, Kent, Lancashire, Middlesex, Notts, Surrey, Sussex and Yorkshire. Derbyshire recovered first-class status in 1894 and rejoined the Championship in 1895.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. Honours Champion Countyunofficial a a – Surrey Wisden (Six Great Bowlers of the Year) – George Lohmann, Johnny Briggs, John Ferris, Charles Turner, Sammy Woods, Bobby Peel Playing record (by county) County Played Won Lost Drawn Pointsreporting b b Gloucestershire 14 5 5 4 7.0 Kent 14 7 5 2 8.0 Lancashire 14 4 5 5 6.5 Middlesex 12 4 7 1 4.5 Nottinghamshire 14 3 6 5 5.5 Surrey 14 12 1 1 12.5 Sussex 12 1 9 2 2.0 Yorkshire 14 6 4 4 8.0 Wynne-Thomas, Peter; The Rigby A-Z of Cricket Records; p. 54 072701868X Leading batsmen (qualification 20 innings) 1888 English season leading batsmenFirst Class Batting in England in 1888 Name Team Matches Innings Not outs Runs Highest score Average 100s 50sWalter Read SurreyEngland 28 41 2 1414 338 36.25 4 3WG Grace GloucestershireEngland 33 59 1 1886 215 32.51 4 7Bobby Abel SurreyEngland 29 44 2 1323 160 31.50 1 8Joseph Eccles Lancashire 16 28 2 660 184 25.38 1 2Maurice Read Surrey 23 32 1 786 109 25.35 1 4 Leading bowlers (qualification 1,000 balls) 1888 English season leading bowlersFirst Class Bowling in England in 1888 Name Team Balls bowled Runs conceded Wickets taken Average Best bowling 5 wicketsin innings 10 wicketsin matchJohnny Briggs LancashireEngland 5802 1679 160 10.49 9/88 16 4Alec Hearne Kent 2750 786 73 10.76 8/30 5 1Frederick Martin Kent 3014 791 73 10.83 6/27 4 1George Lohmann SurreyEngland 6596 2280 209 10.90 8/13 25 9Jim Phillips Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) 1199 393 35 11.22 6/89 5 1 Ashes tour Australian cricket team in England in 1888 The sixth Australia team, under the captaincy of Percy McDonnell, toured England in 1888. The great team of 1882 under Billy Murdoch had largely disintegrated, and under McDonnell, the team was largely dependent on the sensational bowling of Turner and Ferris.The Australian team in England, 1888 Their overall record of nineteen victories and fourteen defeats was a minor improvement on the 1886 team, but the absence of Giffen weakened the batting in an exceptionally wet summer, whilst the support bowlers to Turner and Ferris, including the veteran Harry Boyle, were used so little that they could never get into form. When the weather improved after a dreadful mid-summer, the batting was much too poor to compete with England and the team's results deteriorated with thrashings in the last two Test matches and poor results against the counties. Thanks mainly to the bowling of Bobby Peel, well supported by Lohmann, Briggs and Barnes, England defeated Australia two tests to one to retain the Ashes. Cumulative record - Test wins 1876–1888England16Australia10Drawn4 Notable events Following the demotion of Derbyshire, the remaining eight counties arrange a nearly-complete program of home-and-away matches (except for Middlesex not playing Sussex) which paves the way for the first County Championship in 1890. 5 July – Formation of Glamorgan County Cricket Club took place at a meeting in the Angel Hotel, Cardiff. 11 August – Surrey beats Sussex by an innings and 485 runs,Surrey v Sussex in 1888 which remains the most one-sided match in county cricket history. Surrey's score of 698 broke their own 1883 record of 650 as the highest innings total in county cricket.Webber, Roy; The Playfair Book of Cricket Records; p. 18. Published 1951 by Playfair Books. 23 August – Charles Turner takes his 215th wicket, beating Ted Peate's 1882 record for most wickets in a season. Turner would finish with 283, a total beaten only by Tich Freeman in 1928 and 1933 and Tom Richardson in 1895. Surrey's feat of winning twelve of its fourteen games is a winning percentage that has not been equalled since in county cricket, with the best since being fourteen wins in seventeen matches by Warwickshire in 1995.Engel, Matthew (editor); Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 133rd Edition (1996), pp. 396–397 John Wisden’s Cricketers' Almanack publishes its first “Cricketers of the Year” for this season. Labels unofficial a aAn unofficial seasonal title sometimes proclaimed by consensus of media and historians prior to December 1889 when the official County Championship was constituted. Although there are ante-dated claims prior to 1873, when residence qualifications were introduced, it is only since that ruling that any quasi-official status can be ascribed. reporting b bBetween 1887 and 1889 an unofficial point system of 1 point for a win and 0.5 points for a draw, devised by the "Cricket Reporting Agency", was used to determine the unofficial "Champion County" 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 James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual (Red Lilly), Lillywhite, 1889 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1889 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:1888 in English cricket Category:English cricket seasons in the 19th century