The 1890s

Cricket controversies from 1890 to 1899

49 incidents documented

Wilfred Rhodes — Test Debut with W.G. Grace's Last Match, 1899

England, Australia

1899-06-01

Wilfred Rhodes made his Test debut at Trent Bridge in June 1899 — the same match that proved to be W.G. Grace's last Test. Rhodes' Test career would span 30 years 313 days, the longest in history; he would also be the oldest Test player ever (52 years 165 days). Through the 1900s he was first England's slow left-arm spinner and then, by 1909, an opening batsman.

#wilfred-rhodes#wg-grace#england

⭐Serious

Victor Trumper's 135* on Test Debut Summer — Lord's, 1899

England v Australia

1899-06-15

On 15-17 June 1899, in only his second Test match, the 21-year-old Victor Trumper played a 135 not out at Lord's that announced him as the most original batsman in cricket. Coming in at 59 for 3, he batted across two days, drove and cut Bobby Peel's spiritual heir Wilfred Rhodes through every gap, and helped Australia to an innings victory and a 1-0 Ashes lead they would not surrender. Within a year he was Australia's most-photographed sportsman.

#victor-trumper#1899#lords

⭐Serious

W.G. Grace's Last Test — Trent Bridge, 1899

England v Australia

1899-06-01

On 1-3 June 1899, in the first Test ever played at Trent Bridge, the 50-year-old W.G. Grace captained England against Australia. He made 28 and 1, dropped catches at point, and was barracked by the Nottingham crowd over his fielding. Three days after the match he resigned the captaincy and his place. The same Test marked the debuts of Wilfred Rhodes (21) and Victor Trumper (21) — Rhodes would play with Bradman in his last Test; Trumper would become Australia's first cricketing icon.

#wg-grace#1899#trent-bridge

⭐Serious

Wilfred Rhodes's Test Debut — Trent Bridge, 1899

England v Australia

1899-06-01

On 1 June 1899, the 21-year-old Yorkshire left-arm spinner Wilfred Rhodes opened England's bowling against Australia at Trent Bridge and took 4 for 58 in 35.1 overs on debut. The same Test marked W.G. Grace's last appearance. Rhodes would play another 57 Tests across the next 31 years, finishing with the longest Test career in cricket history — the only man to play with both W.G. Grace and Don Bradman.

#wilfred-rhodes#1899#test-debut

⭐Moderate

Victor Trumper's Tour Selection — From Sydney Schoolboy to Australian Star, 1899

Australia

1899-04-15

When Australia's selectors announced the squad for the 1899 tour of England, the inclusion of 21-year-old Sydney clerk Victor Trumper — who had played only one full Sheffield Shield season — caused a national row. Joe Darling, the new captain, had insisted on his selection over established state players. Trumper had to be lent the £200 tour fee to accept. Within ten weeks he was making 135* at Lord's. The selection is one of the great calls in Australian cricket history.

#victor-trumper#1899#joe-darling

⭐Serious

Bobby Abel's 357* — Surrey's Record Stands at the Oval, 1899

Surrey v Somerset

1899-05-29

From 29 to 31 May 1899, Surrey's 41-year-old opener Bobby Abel batted across most of two days at The Oval to score 357 not out against Somerset, carrying his bat through Surrey's innings of 811. It remains, more than 125 years later, Surrey's highest individual score and the highest by anyone carrying their bat in first-class cricket. Surrey won by an innings and 379.

#bobby-abel#1899#the-oval

⭐Moderate

Albert Trott Hits a Six Over the Lord's Pavilion — 31 July 1899

MCC v Australians

1899-07-31

On 31 July 1899, in a tour match between MCC and the touring Australians at Lord's, Middlesex's Australian-born all-rounder Albert Trott — playing for MCC — hit Monty Noble for what is still the only six ever struck clean over the Lord's pavilion. The ball glanced a chimney stack and landed in pavilion attendant Philip Need's garden behind the building. The blow has not been matched in 125 years of cricket at Lord's.

#albert-trott#1899#lords

⭐Moderate

Albert Trott's 1,000 Runs and 200 Wickets — The Only Such Double, 1899

Middlesex CCC

1899-09-15

In the 1899 first-class season Albert Trott scored 1,175 runs and took 239 wickets for Middlesex and the various invitational sides he played for. He became, and remains, the only cricketer to do a 1,000-run / 200-wicket double in a single first-class season — a feat he would repeat in 1900. The same summer he hit the only six ever to clear the Lord's pavilion. Wisden made him a Cricketer of the Year in 1899.

#albert-trott#1899#middlesex

⭐Moderate

Ranjitsinhji's 3,000 Runs in a Season — A First in 1899

Sussex CCC and others

1899-08-31

In the 1899 first-class season K.S. Ranjitsinhji scored 3,159 runs at 63.18 — the first batsman ever to pass 3,000 first-class runs in a single season. Sussex, captained by him, finished fifth in the Championship for their highest-ever placing to that point. The 3,000-run mark was retro-engineered as a benchmark for the era; only ten more batsmen have ever passed it, and none in the last 65 years.

#ranjitsinhji#1899#3000-runs

⭐Serious

Jack Hearne's Headingley Hat-Trick — England's First v Australia, 1899

England v Australia

1899-06-29

On 29 June 1899, in the first Test ever played at Headingley, Middlesex's medium-pacer Jack Hearne took the wickets of Clem Hill, Syd Gregory and Monty Noble in three consecutive balls — England's first hat-trick against Australia in Test cricket. Australia were dismissed for 172. The match was drawn after Johnny Briggs collapsed in an epileptic fit overnight (see entry); the hat-trick lit one of the bleakest days in English cricket.

#jack-hearne#1899#headingley

🥊Serious

Johnny Briggs's Epileptic Fit at Headingley — The End of a Test Career, 1899

England v Australia

1899-06-30

On the night of 29-30 June 1899, after the first day of England's first Test at Headingley, Lancashire's left-arm spinner Johnny Briggs — already a 33-Test veteran with 118 wickets — suffered a violent epileptic fit at the team hotel. He was admitted to Cheadle Royal Hospital. He played one more season of county cricket in 1900 before relapses forced him to a sanatorium. He died in 1902 aged 39 — the first Test cricketer known to have died of an epilepsy-related illness.

#johnny-briggs#1899#headingley

⭐Serious

Australia Win the Ashes in England — Joe Darling's First Series, Five-Test Tour, 1899

England v Australia

1899-08-15

The 1899 Ashes was the first Test series in England to consist of five matches rather than three. Australia, captained by Joe Darling on his first tour as skipper, won the only match decided — the second Test at Lord's by 10 wickets — and drew the other four to take the series 1-0. It was Australia's first Ashes win on English soil since 1882, and the launch series for Victor Trumper, Monty Noble, Hugh Trumble at his peak and Ernie Jones.

#ashes-1899#joe-darling#australia

🏏Serious

Ernie Jones No-Balled for Throwing — First in Test Cricket, 1898

Australia v England

1898-01-01

On 1 January 1898 at the MCG, umpire Jim Phillips called Australia's Ernie Jones for throwing — the first bowler ever no-balled for a suspect action in a Test match. Jones, the South Australian fast bowler famous for sending a ball through W.G. Grace's beard the previous summer, had been called once before the Test by Phillips in a tour match. The Melbourne call set off a 'chucking question' that would consume English county cricket through 1900-01 and end Arthur Mold's career.

#ernie-jones#1898#throwing

⭐Serious

Clem Hill's 188 — A Maiden Test Century at 20, Melbourne 1898

Australia v England

1898-01-01

On 1-3 January 1898, the 20-year-old Adelaide left-hander Clem Hill came in at 6 for 58 and made 188 — his maiden Test century, and still the highest Ashes Test score by a player under 21. Australia recovered to 520 and won by an innings. The innings established Hill as the central figure of Australian batting between Trumper and Bradman; he would average 39 across 49 Tests until 1912.

#clem-hill#1898#melbourne

⭐Serious

Joe Darling's 91-Minute Hundred — Fastest Test Century, Sydney 1898

Australia v England

1898-03-04

On 4 March 1898, in the dead-rubber Fifth Test at Sydney, Australia's South Australian opener Joe Darling reached his Test hundred in 91 minutes — at the time the fastest Test century in cricket. He went on to 160 in 165 minutes with 30 boundaries. By the end of the series Darling had become the first player to score 500 runs in an Ashes series and the first to score three hundreds in any series. Within fifteen months he was Australia's captain.

#joe-darling#1898#sydney

🥊Moderate

Charles Kortright — The Fastest Bowler of the Era and the Man Who Wouldn't Walk for W.G. Grace, 1890s

Essex, Gloucestershire

1898-07-01

Charles Jesse Kortright of Essex was generally considered the fastest bowler of the Victorian era — quicker, contemporaries said, than Tom Richardson or Arthur Mold. He never played a Test, but his 1898 confrontation with W.G. Grace at Leyton produced one of cricket's most-quoted exchanges: when Grace declined to walk despite being plumb out, Kortright eventually uprooted two stumps and remarked, 'Surely you're not going, Doc? There's still one stump standing.'

#charles-kortright#fast-bowling#essex

⭐Moderate

W.G. Grace's 50th Birthday — Gentlemen v Players Match Arranged for the Occasion, Lord's July 1898

Gentlemen v Players

1898-07-18

MCC arranged the 1898 Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's to begin on 18 July — the 50th birthday of W.G. Grace, who captained the Gentlemen side. Grace, lame and with an injured hand, made 43 and 31 not out in a drawn match. The fixture was treated as a national event: the King (then Prince of Wales) attended, the press described it as a tribute to 'the most celebrated Englishman of his age', and four days later Grace went to Trent Bridge and made 168 against Notts, his highest score of the summer.

#wg-grace#1898#lords

⭐Moderate

Monty Noble's Test Debut — A Future Captain Takes 6 for 49 at Melbourne, January 1898

Australia v England

1898-01-01

On 1 January 1898 at the MCG, Montague Alfred Noble — a 24-year-old New South Wales medium-pacer and middle-order batsman — made his Test debut against Stoddart's England. He took 6 for 49 in England's second innings as Australia won by an innings and 55 runs. It was the start of a 42-Test career, fifteen as captain, that would produce 121 Test wickets at 25.00 and a reputation as Australia's most complete all-rounder before Keith Miller.

#monty-noble#1898#melbourne

🥊Serious

Bobby Peel Sacked by Yorkshire — Drunk on the Field, 1897

Yorkshire v Middlesex

1897-08-18

On 18 August 1897, Yorkshire's left-arm spinner Bobby Peel — at that point England's most successful slow bowler and a 100-Test-wicket man — turned up drunk on the third day of a Championship match against Middlesex at Bramall Lane. Lord Hawke ordered him from the field, and the Yorkshire committee suspended him for the rest of the season. Peel never played for Yorkshire again. The decision opened the door for the 19-year-old Wilfred Rhodes, who would take 4,184 first-class wickets across the next 33 years.

#bobby-peel#1897#lord-hawke

⭐Serious

Ranjitsinhji's 175 at Sydney — Batting with Quinsy, 1897-98

Australia v England

1897-12-13

Ranjitsinhji arrived in Sydney for the First Test of the 1897-98 Ashes with quinsy, lost 12 pounds in three days, and was excused from the field for the start of the match by rain. When he batted, weakened and at number seven, he made 175 in 223 minutes — then the highest Test score by an England batsman in Australia. England won the Test by nine wickets. Australia would win the rubber 4-1, but Ranji's Sydney innings is often cited as his greatest.

#ranjitsinhji#1897#sydney

⭐Moderate

Lancashire's First Title — 1897 County Championship

Lancashire CCC

1897-08-30

Lancashire won their first official County Championship in 1897, narrowly edging Surrey, with a bowling attack of Briggs, Cuttell, Mold and Hallam taking 420 wickets between them. Captain Archie MacLaren — the same MacLaren of the 424 at Taunton in 1895 — averaged 41 with the bat. The 1897 title broke Surrey's hold on the early Championship and is the only one of Lancashire's nine official Championships from the 19th century.

#lancashire#1897#county-championship

🥊Moderate

Stoddart's Lost 1897-98 Tour — Captain in Mourning

England (Stoddart's XI)

1897-12-13

The 1897-98 Ashes tour of Australia, captained by Andrew Stoddart for the second time, became the most personally bleak overseas English tour of the century. News of his mother's death reached him before the First Test; he stood down from the first two Tests and let Archie MacLaren lead. Stoddart returned for the Third and Fourth Tests, made 17, 24, 9 and 25, was barracked at Sydney, and walked off the cricket field for the last time. The tour was the high tide of his unravelling — he died by suicide in 1915.

#andrew-stoddart#1897#1898

⭐Moderate

Ranjitsinhji's 'Jubilee Book of Cricket' — The First Modern Cricket Manual, 1897

England, Sussex, India

1897-06-22

Published in June 1897 to coincide with Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, Ranjitsinhji's Jubilee Book of Cricket was the most ambitious cricket manual ever produced and the first to be illustrated with photographs. Dedicated to the Queen, the 474-page volume codified Ranji's leg-glance technique, set out the first modern explanation of batting against pace and spin, and remained the definitive cricket coaching book for thirty years. Ranji's ghost-writer was the cricket journalist C.B. Fry.

#ranjitsinhji#1897#jubilee-book

🥊Serious

George Lohmann's South African Exile — The Best Bowler in the World Goes Home to Die, 1897

Surrey, Western Province

1897-09-15

In 1897, George Lohmann — Test cricket's most efficient bowler ever, with 112 wickets at 10.75 — moved permanently to the British Cape Colony. He had been diagnosed with tuberculosis in late 1892 and had survived through annual winters in South Africa; the disease had progressively worsened. He played one full first-class season for Western Province in 1897-98, returned to England in 1901 to manage a South African tour, and died at Matjiesfontein on 1 December 1901 aged 36. His Test bowling average remains the lowest in cricket history.

#george-lohmann#1897#tuberculosis

⭐Serious

Ranjitsinhji's 154* on Test Debut — Old Trafford, 1896

England v Australia

1896-07-18

On 18 July 1896 K.S. Ranjitsinhji, 23, a Cambridge graduate from Nawanagar, walked out at Old Trafford for his Test debut and made 62 in the first innings and an unbeaten 154 in the second — including 113 between the start of the third morning and lunch, becoming the first batsman to score a century before lunch in Test cricket. The MCC selectors had refused him for the First Test on grounds that were widely understood to be racial; Lancashire's local committee picked him for Manchester. Australia won the Test, but the leg-glanced 154* changed cricket's conversation about who could play it.

#ranjitsinhji#1896#test-debut

⭐Serious

George Lohmann's 9 for 28 — South Africa Bowled Out at Old Wanderers, 1896

South Africa v England

1896-03-02

On 2 March 1896 at the Old Wanderers in Johannesburg, Surrey's George Lohmann took 9 for 28 in 14.2 four-ball overs as South Africa were bowled out for 197 in their first innings. It was the first nine-wicket innings haul in Test cricket and stood as the best Test bowling figures in the world for sixty years until Jim Laker's 10 for 53 at Old Trafford in 1956. Lohmann would finish the series with 35 wickets at 5.80, still the highest tally in any three-Test series.

#george-lohmann#1896#south-africa

⭐Serious

Lohmann's 15 for 45 and Hat-Trick — South Africa All Out 30, 1896

South Africa v England

1896-02-13

Three weeks before the 9/28 at Old Wanderers, George Lohmann took 7 for 38 and 8 for 7 — match figures of 15 for 45 — at Port Elizabeth, dismissing South Africa for 30 in the second innings and ending the match with a hat-trick. The 30 all out remained the lowest Test innings total for sixty years; the 15/45 was then the best match analysis in Test cricket. The First Test of the 1895-96 series ran two days.

#george-lohmann#1896#south-africa

⭐Serious

Tom Richardson's Old Trafford Heroism — 13 for 244 in a Lost Test, 1896

England v Australia

1896-07-16

In the same Old Trafford Test that produced Ranjitsinhji's debut 154*, England's fast bowler Tom Richardson took 7 for 168 and 6 for 76 — match figures of 13 for 244 from 110 overs of fast bowling. He bowled unchanged for three hours on the final afternoon as Australia scrabbled to 125 for 7 chasing 125 to win. Australia held on by three wickets. Richardson's spell is one of the great lost-cause performances in Test history.

#tom-richardson#1896#old-trafford

🔥Serious

Lord Hawke's England Tour Trapped in the Jameson Raid — South Africa, 1896

England (Lord Hawke's XI) v South Africa

1896-01-02

Lord Hawke's England tour of South Africa in 1895-96 sailed into the middle of the Jameson Raid — a 600-man British attempt to overthrow Paul Kruger's Transvaal that began on 29 December 1895 and collapsed on 2 January 1896. The cricketers' tour sponsor, Johannesburg mining magnate Abe Bailey, was arrested and fined £2,000. Hawke persuaded Kruger to allow the team to visit the imprisoned raiders in Pretoria gaol; a poker night was arranged before the prisoners returned to their cells.

#lord-hawke#1896#jameson-raid

⭐Moderate

Hugh Trumble's 12 for 89 — Australia's Off-Spinner Bowls Through a Losing Test, Oval August 1896

England v Australia

1896-08-10

On a damp Oval pitch in August 1896, Australia's off-spinner Hugh Trumble took 6 for 59 and 6 for 30 — match figures of 12 for 89 — yet finished on the losing side. Australia, set 111 to win, collapsed to 19 for 8 and were all out for 44, England winning the third Test and the series 2-1. Wisden called Trumble 'on all wickets distinctly the best bowler on the side'; the match remains one of cricket's most celebrated bowling efforts in defeat.

#hugh-trumble#1896#the-oval

🔥Serious

Ranjitsinhji's Selection Battle — Lord Harris Blocks Him at Lord's, Old Trafford Selectors Pick Him Anyway, 1896

England v Australia

1896-06-22

In June 1896, despite Ranjitsinhji topping the English first-class averages, Lord Harris — president of MCC and effectively the selector for the Lord's Test — refused to pick him for the first Test against Australia, arguing only 'native-born' Englishmen should represent the side. England lost. The Lancashire selectors who chose the Old Trafford Test simply ignored Harris and picked Ranji, who marked his debut with 62 and 154 not out, and the precedent of an English-born-only Test team was broken forever.

#ranjitsinhji#1896#lord-harris

⭐Moderate

Archie MacLaren — 424 at Taunton (1895) and the Lancashire Captaincy

Lancashire, Somerset

1895-07-16

Archibald Campbell MacLaren scored 424 for Lancashire v Somerset at Taunton on 15-16 July 1895 — the first quadruple-century in first-class cricket and the highest individual innings until Bill Ponsford's 429 in 1923. The score remained the English first-class record until Brian Lara's 501 not out in 1994. MacLaren went on to captain Lancashire and England across the 1900s.

#archie-maclaren#lancashire#1895

⭐Serious

W.G. Grace's 100th First-Class Hundred — 288 v Somerset, 17 May 1895

Gloucestershire v Somerset

1895-05-17

On 17 May 1895, in his 47th year, W.G. Grace became the first cricketer to score 100 first-class hundreds, raising the milestone in a Championship match against Somerset at Bristol. He carried on to 288 — his ninth-highest career score — and when he reached 200 the home crowd brought champagne onto the field for him to toast himself at the wicket. It was the centrepiece of an 'Indian Summer' that produced 1,016 runs in May alone.

#wg-grace#1895#hundred-hundreds

⭐Serious

W.G. Grace's 1,000 Runs in May — The First Time, 1895

Gloucestershire v Sussex/Somerset/Yorkshire/Middlesex/Kent

1895-05-30

Grace started his 1895 season on 9 May and finished it on 30 May with 1,016 first-class runs at an average over 100. Scores of 13, 103, 18, 25, 288, 52, 257, 73*, 18 and 169 made him the first player to score 1,000 first-class runs in May, a Victorian benchmark only matched twice since — by Wally Hammond in 1927 and Charlie Hallows in 1928. He was 46 going on 47.

#wg-grace#1895#1000-runs-in-may

⭐Serious

George Giffen's 475 Runs and 34 Wickets — Best All-Round Series Ever, 1894-95

Australia v England

1895-03-06

Across the five Tests of the 1894-95 Ashes, George Giffen — Australia's captain, opening bowler and number-three batsman — scored 475 runs at 52.78 and took 34 wickets at 24.12. The combined haul is still, 130 years later, the best all-round performance in any Test series in cricket history. Australia lost the rubber 2-3, but Giffen's series average has never been matched.

#george-giffen#1894#1895

⭐Serious

Archie MacLaren's 424 — First Quadruple Century in First-Class Cricket, 1895

Lancashire v Somerset

1895-07-15

On 15-16 July 1895, the 23-year-old Archie MacLaren batted across two days at Taunton to score 424 — the first quadruple century in first-class cricket history and the highest individual first-class score the game had seen. He surpassed W.G. Grace's 1876 mark of 344, batted 470 minutes, hit 62 fours and a six, and held the world record for 28 years until Bill Ponsford's 429 in 1923. The score remained the highest in English first-class cricket until 1994.

#archie-maclaren#1895#taunton

⭐Serious

Albert Trott's Adelaide Debut — 110* and 8/43 at Number Ten, 1895

Australia v England

1895-01-11

On Test debut at Adelaide in January 1895, the 21-year-old Victorian all-rounder Albert Trott — playing alongside his older brother and captain Harry — batted at number ten for 38 not out and 72 not out (an unbeaten 110 in the match) and took 8 for 43 in England's second innings. Australia won by 382 runs. It was statistically the most complete Test debut in cricket history; within four years Trott would, for separate reasons, never play Test cricket for Australia again.

#albert-trott#1895#adelaide

⭐Serious

Tom Richardson's 290 Wickets — The Greatest Fast-Bowling Season in History, 1895

Surrey, England

1895-09-01

In the summer of 1895 — the same season as W.G. Grace's 'Indian Summer' — Surrey's Tom Richardson took 290 first-class wickets at 14.37, the largest haul ever recorded by a fast bowler in a single English season. Of those 290 wickets, 237 came in county matches and 176 of all dismissals were bowled. Across the four consecutive seasons 1894-97 he took 1,005 first-class wickets, a workload no fast bowler before or since has matched.

#tom-richardson#1895#surrey

⭐Serious

Sydney 1894 — England Win After Following On for the First Time

Australia v England

1894-12-20

On 20 December 1894, with Australia 113 for 2 chasing 177 and the match seemingly won, overnight rain and a hot Sydney sun turned the SCG into a sticky. Bobby Peel — pulled from a hangover by his captain Andrew Stoddart — took 6 for 67 and England won by 10 runs. It was the first time in Test history a side had won after following on, after Australia's first-innings 586 had piled up against an England 325. Wisden called it 'probably the most sensational match ever played either in Australia or in England.'

#ashes#1894#sydney

⭐Moderate

Stoddart's 173 at Melbourne — 'The Century of My Career', 1894-95

Australia v England

1894-12-29

Days after the Sydney follow-on miracle, England captain Andrew Stoddart played the innings he later called 'the century of my career' — 173 from 297 minutes at the MCG, taking England 2-0 up in the 1894-95 Ashes. The score remained the highest by an England captain in Australia until Mike Denness passed it 80 years later in 1974-75. Stoddart's tour was the high tide of his cricketing life.

#andrew-stoddart#1894#melbourne

⭐Serious

Lord Hawke's Winter Pay — How Yorkshire's Captain Reformed the Lot of the Professional Cricketer, 1890s

Yorkshire

1894-12-01

Lord Hawke captained Yorkshire from 1883 to 1910, taking the side from a hard-drinking ungovernable team to four County Championships in the 1890s. His most enduring change had nothing to do with on-field tactics: he introduced winter pay for professionals (who until then earned only during the summer), made benefit money trustee-managed for long-term security, and dismissed players he felt failed in their conduct. Bobby Peel's 1897 sacking was the most famous case.

#lord-hawke#yorkshire#professional-cricket

⭐Moderate

C.B. Fry Arrives — Oxford Captain, Long-Jump Record-Holder, Sussex Debutant, 1894

Oxford University, Sussex

1894-05-21

Charles Burgess Fry was 22 in 1894, an Oxford undergraduate who had broken the British long-jump record (23 feet 5 inches in 1892) and equalled the world record (23 feet 6½ inches on 4 March 1893). He was elected Oxford cricket captain for 1894 and made his first-class Sussex debut the same summer, beginning a partnership with Ranjitsinhji that would dominate English batting for fifteen years and produce a man often cited as the greatest all-round Englishman of his era.

#cb-fry#1894#oxford

⭐Moderate

Yorkshire's First Official Title — 1893 County Championship

Yorkshire CCC

1893-08-31

Yorkshire won their first official County Championship in 1893, three years after the formal competition began. Captained by Lord Hawke — though the 33-year-old amateur played only eleven of the matches — they won twelve fixtures and lost just one, beginning an era that would produce eight titles in 16 years. The 1893 side was the first product of Hawke's drive for professional discipline; the players included Bobby Peel, George Hirst and Stanley Jackson.

#yorkshire#1893#lord-hawke

⭐Moderate

F.S. Jackson's Test Debut — A Harrow All-Rounder Walks Into the England Side, Lord's July 1893

England v Australia

1893-07-17

Francis Stanley Jackson, a 22-year-old Cambridge captain and Harrow product, made his Test debut for England against Australia at Lord's in July 1893. He scored 91 in his only innings and took 4 wickets, an introduction so commanding that he was retained for every home Ashes Test for the next twelve years and would, in 1905, captain England to the most one-sided Ashes series of the era.

#fs-jackson#1893#lords

⭐Moderate

South Africa's Second Test Series — Walter Read's Tour, March 1892

South Africa v England

1892-03-19

On 19-22 March 1892, Walter Read's privately-organised English XI played South Africa in what was retrospectively granted Test status — only the second Test in South African history after Major Wharton's 1888-89 tour. England won by an innings and 189 runs at Newlands; John Ferris, the Australian-born bowler now qualified for England, took 13 wickets. South Africa's Test cricket had begun fitfully and would not produce a competitive home performance until the next decade.

#south-africa#1892#newlands

⭐Moderate

First First-Class Match in India — Parsis v Europeans at Bombay, 1892

Parsis v Europeans

1892-08-26

On 26 August 1892, the annual Parsis v Europeans fixture at Bombay Gymkhana was played as a two-innings match — the first first-class match on Indian soil. The match was drawn, but it formalised what would become the Bombay Tournament: the first organised cricket competition in India, founded with the encouragement of Bombay Governor Lord Harris and run continuously until 1946. Mehellasha Pavri, the Parsi fast bowler who had toured England in 1888, took several wickets.

#india#1892#bombay

⭐Moderate

Walter Read's South Africa Tour — England's Second Test Visit Wins by an Innings, March 1892

South Africa v England

1892-03-19

From December 1891 to March 1892 an English side organised and captained by Surrey's Walter Read toured South Africa. The single Test, played at Newlands from 19 to 22 March 1892, was won by England by an innings and 189 runs. JJ Ferris took 13 wickets in the match (6/54 and 7/37); Henry Wood made 134 — the first Test hundred by a wicketkeeper. The match was retrospectively classified as Test cricket and remains South Africa's second Test.

#walter-read#1892#south-africa

⭐Serious

Lord Sheffield's 1891-92 Tour — Birth of the Sheffield Shield

England v Australia

1891-12-15

When the Earl of Sheffield financed an English tour of Australia in 1891-92 with WG Grace as captain, he ended the trip by donating £150 to the New South Wales Cricket Association to fund a perpetual trophy for inter-colonial cricket. The result: the Sheffield Shield, contested between NSW, Victoria and South Australia from 1892-93 onwards, and the foundational competition of Australian first-class cricket.

#lord-sheffield#1891-92#sheffield-shield

⭐Serious

The County Championship is Born — Surrey First Official Champions, 1890

Eight first-class counties

1890-05-12

On 10 December 1889, secretaries of eight first-class counties met at Lord's and agreed to settle the championship by wins and losses, ignoring drawn games. The 1890 season that followed is the one Wisden and the counties themselves recognise as the first official County Championship. Surrey, captained by John Shuter and powered by George Lohmann and Bobby Abel, won nine of fourteen matches and were declared the inaugural champions — the start of the unbroken competition that still runs today.

#county-championship#1890#surrey