Through the 1830s the Norfolk-born professional Fuller Pilch was the most consistent batsman in England. Standing six feet tall and using a long forward stride that contemporaries called 'Pilch's poke' — the front foot pushed almost to the pitch of the ball before the bat came down — he reduced the new roundarm bowling to manageable terms when most batsmen were still being shelled out cheaply, and held the title of best bat in England for the better part of two decades.
Cricket in the 1820s and early 1830s was undergoing a technical revolution. The legalisation of roundarm bowling in 1828 (with the hand permitted up to elbow height) and again in 1835 (up to shoulder height) had tilted the balance against batters who had grown up against underarm. Most batsmen kept playing back; Pilch's innovation was to play decisively forward.
Pilch had been good enough as a teenager in the 1820s to dismiss his elder brothers' reputations and take their place in the Norfolk eleven. By the late 1820s he was being engaged for matches across the country and his fame was spreading.
Born at Horningtoft in Norfolk in 1804, Fuller Pilch came from a cricketing family — his elder brothers William and Nathaniel both played for the county — and was already a marked player by his teens. He made his Marylebone debut in 1820 at the age of 16 and was a regular in the Norfolk side throughout the 1820s. The 1830s, however, were the decade in which he became the central batsman of English cricket. The legalisation of roundarm bowling in 1828 (and the further widening of the law in 1835) had given bowlers a new advantage; pitches were rough, often unrolled, and big scores were rare. Pilch's response was a forward technique that became known as 'Pilch's poke'. He stretched his front foot a long way down the wicket, smothering the ball before it could lift or turn, and met it with a dead bat. On the bumpy pitches of the day this was a near-revolutionary defensive method. He also drove powerfully through the off side when the ball was over-pitched. Through the 1830s his name appeared at the top of almost every batting list of the season; he was a fixture in single-wicket contests, in the great North vs South matches that began in 1836, and in the Players sides that faced the Gentlemen at Lord's. The Sporting Magazine of 1838 called him 'beyond all question the finest batter in England'.
1820: Pilch's first appearance at Lord's, aged 16
Late 1820s: Establishes himself as Norfolk's leading batsman
1830: Recognised in print as one of the leading batsmen in England
1833: Defeats Tom Marsden of Yorkshire in a celebrated single-wicket match
1830s: 'Pilch's poke' becomes the standard description of his front-foot technique
1838: Sporting Magazine names him the finest batter in England
1804
Pilch born at Horningtoft, Norfolk
1820
Lord's debut, aged 16
1828
Roundarm bowling legalised to elbow height
1833
Single-wicket victory over Tom Marsden
1835
Roundarm extended to shoulder height
1836
Engaged by Kent as professional
“Pilch is, beyond all question, the finest batter in England.”
“His long forward stride was a thing of beauty; he met the ball before the ground had a chance to deceive.”
Pilch continued as England's leading batsman through the 1840s. His 1836 transfer to Kent (as a paid professional and innkeeper) anchored Kent's golden era under Alfred Mynn. He retired from first-class cricket in 1854 and died in Canterbury in 1870; his grave in St Gregory's churchyard is still tended.
The pre-eminent batsman of the 1830s and the first technician to solve the new roundarm bowling, Pilch set the standard against which every contemporary was measured.
Pilch is the first great batsman of the modern (post-1828) game. His forward defensive method was studied and copied for a generation; W.G. Grace's father and uncle, who taught the young W.G., had themselves grown up watching Pilch. The phrase 'Pilch's poke' survived into the twentieth century as cricket vocabulary for the long forward stride.
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.