Alfred Mynn vs James Dearman — Single-Wicket Challenge, 1836

Single-wicket matches were a betting man's contest. Crowds gathered for the size of the stake and the personality clash; the cricket itself was often less than first-class. James Dearman had built his reputation on victories over northern batsmen.

Mynn was already feared in Kent for his fast bowling but had less national reputation than Pilch or Lillywhite. The match was promoted as a north-south showdown, with heavy press coverage in both Sheffield and London papers.

Single-wicket cricket — a contest between named individuals or small teams under a special set of rules in which only the cut of the ground in front of the wicket counted as fair play — was the staple high-stakes betting cricket of the 1820s and 1830s. The biggest names of the era — Pilch, Mynn, Marsden, Dearman — staked their reputations on these matches more often than on county fixtures. James Dearman was the Sheffield-based batsman widely held to be the best in the North. Alfred Mynn of Kent was a different kind of figure: 6 ft 1 in tall, weighing close to twenty stone in his prime, and capable of bowling fast roundarm at speeds that contemporaries described as terrifying. The match was arranged for £100 a side and a side-bet of similar value. It was played at Town Malling on 29 and 30 September 1836. Mynn, batting first, made 123 not out — an enormous individual score by the standards of single-wicket. He then bowled Dearman for 0 in his first innings and for 16 in the second, winning by an innings and 107 runs. The crowd was reportedly the largest seen at a single-wicket match in the south. Mynn's pocketed £100 (a substantial sum, equivalent to a year's professional cricketer's earnings) and Kent's reputation for fast bowling was made.

“Mynn bowled fearfully fast, and Dearman could not keep him out.”

“With his lion-like air the great Kent man stood at the wicket and seemed to fill the whole ground.”

Dearman demanded a rematch, which would be played at Brighton in 1837 and which Mynn would also win convincingly. Mynn's reputation as 'the Lion of Kent' was now national. He would dominate single-wicket cricket through the late 1830s and early 1840s.