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.
Inter-county cricket in England dated back to the eighteenth century but had no formal structure. Through the 1870s and 1880s newspapers awarded the 'championship' on impressionistic grounds; Nottinghamshire alone claimed the title in five different forms between 1883 and 1889. With more counties wanting in and railways making fixtures easier, the eight leading clubs decided a competition needed clear rules.
The 10 December 1889 meeting at Lord's was called nominally to fix 1890 fixtures, but a private side meeting drew up the championship rules. The final formula — wins minus losses, draws ignored — was Lord Harris's preferred system; it survived almost unchanged until points were introduced in 1910.
Before 1890 the 'champion county' had been a matter of newspaper opinion. Editors of The Sportsman, Wisden and Cricket disagreed almost annually, and counties such as Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire often shared mythical titles depending on which paper one read. The meeting at Lord's on 10 December 1889 changed that. Representatives of Gloucestershire, Kent, Lancashire, Middlesex, Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Sussex and Yorkshire agreed a single, simple formula: subtract losses from wins, ignore draws, and the side with the highest positive figure was champion.
The 1890 season opened on 12 May. Each county played fourteen matches, home and away against every other side. Surrey won nine, lost three, drew two and finished a clear two wins ahead of Lancashire and Kent who tied for second. The Surrey side was a powerhouse: George Lohmann took 220 first-class wickets that summer, Bill Lockwood and Tom Richardson were emerging fast bowlers, and Bobby Abel and Walter Read led an experienced top order.
The table was published in Wisden 1891 with the formal heading 'County Championship', and although the format would expand — to nine counties in 1894, then fourteen by 1895, then sixteen by 1899 — the 1890 season became the official year zero. Every later debate about points systems, bonus points and divisions traces back to the simple wins-minus-losses ledger agreed at Lord's that December afternoon.
10 Dec 1889: Counties meet at Lord's; championship rules agreed.
12 May 1890: Inaugural official Championship season begins.
Surrey win nine of fourteen, lose three, draw two.
Lohmann takes 220 first-class wickets across the season.
Lancashire and Kent tied second on six wins each.
Wisden 1891 publishes the official championship table.
Surrey's first title is the start of an unbroken modern competition.
10 Dec 1889
Lord's meeting agrees championship rules.
12 May 1890
Inaugural official Championship season opens.
Sep 1890
Surrey confirmed as first official champions, nine wins from fourteen.
1891
Somerset elevated; competition begins to expand.
“From 1890 the County Championship may be said to have begun in earnest.”
Surrey would dominate the early Championship, winning in 1890, 1891, 1892, 1894, 1895 and 1899 — six of the decade's ten titles. Yorkshire took 1893, 1896 and 1898, and Lancashire 1897. The competition expanded steadily: Somerset joined in 1891, then Derbyshire, Essex, Hampshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire by 1895, and Worcestershire in 1899.
The day the county game stopped arguing about the title and started awarding it. Surrey's 1890 win is the first entry in cricket's oldest continuous domestic competition.
The 1890 Championship is the spine of the English domestic season and, by lineage, of every domestic first-class league that followed it in Australia, India, the Caribbean and elsewhere. The points system would change many times — a percentage method came in 1895, formal points in 1910, bonus points in 1968, two divisions in 2000 — but the 1890 ledger remains the unbroken first chapter.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.