Alfred Mynn's Single-Wicket Championship — The Lion of Kent Unbeaten, 1840–1847

Single-wicket had generated the biggest gambling stakes in cricket since the 1780s. William Lambert's era had seen organised championship matches; Mynn inherited and dominated this tradition.

Single-wicket cricket had been a high-stakes gambling format since the eighteenth century; by the 1840s it had evolved into a recognised championship, with matches advertised in Bell's Life and played for substantial sums at Lord's and on county grounds. Alfred Mynn was the outstanding practitioner of the era. Born at Goudhurst in 1807, he stood six feet one inch and weighed over seventeen stone; his roundarm pace was among the fastest of the day and his hitting, when he batted, could clear a county ground. Against Fuller Pilch — the era's greatest batsman — Mynn's bowling generally prevailed. Against bowlers, his hitting was frequently decisive. The matches were played under modified laws: typically one player batted, the other bowled and fielded alone, and only catches or bowled dismissals counted. Mynn's tally of victories through the decade established him as champion, and the format's demise — it faded as the All-England Eleven era redirected public interest toward eleven-a-side cricket — meant he was never seriously challenged in his later career. He continued playing county cricket and for the AEE through the 1840s, but single-wicket competition was his individual glory.

“In the days of Mynn there was no one to dispute the throne. He was champion single-wicket player as naturally as he was the most feared bowler in England.”

William Clarke's All-England Eleven redirected professional cricket's commercial energy toward the eleven-a-side touring format after 1846. Single-wicket as a championship format faded through the late 1840s; Mynn's record was never seriously challenged after he stopped competing.