On 22 May 1805 a Trinity College XI played St John's College on Parker's Piece in Cambridge — the earliest documented inter-college cricket match in the history of the university. The match is the foundation entry of Cambridge University cricket and the earliest documented use of Parker's Piece, the common ground that would become one of the most important early grounds in English cricket.
Both Cambridge and Oxford had informal cricket through the eighteenth century. The 1805 Cambridge match is the earliest with surviving documentation.
Cricket had been played at Cambridge informally since at least the 1750s, but no documentary evidence of organised inter-college cricket survives before 1805. The Trinity v St John's match was the first to be reported in a college diary — that of John Strange, a Trinity undergraduate who later became a clergyman in Norfolk. He recorded the result as a Trinity win by an innings, with a 41 from a Trinity batter named Crawford. Parker's Piece had been common land of the city since the seventeenth century; the match used a flat strip on the eastern edge.
22 May 1805
Trinity v St John's at Parker's Piece — earliest documented
1817
First Cambridge University match against an outside side
1827
First University Match against Oxford
1848
Fenner's ground opens, supplanting Parker's Piece
Inter-college cricket grew steadily through the 1810s. The first Cambridge University match against an outside side came in 1817; the first University Match against Oxford came in 1827.
The earliest documented inter-college cricket at Cambridge and the founding entry of Parker's Piece's cricket history.
Cambridge University cricket descends from these earliest college matches. Parker's Piece would, by the 1830s and 1840s, be one of the most important cricket grounds in England — the home pitch of Fenner's predecessors and a cradle of the professional game.
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1811-07-04
The 1811 Lord's season was the leanest of the Middle Ground years. With the Napoleonic blockade at its tightest, willow scarce, professionals diverted to militia service and the betting public's purses thin, only fourteen major matches were played at Lord's all summer. The 1811 season is the clearest measure of cricket's wartime contraction.
Officers vs Civilians
1812-12-15
By the close of 1812 cricket was being played regularly in both Madras and Bombay — the earliest documented fixtures in either Presidency. Garrison officers and civilian East India Company servants ran the matches; the Madras Gazette and Bombay Courier preserved the earliest scoresheets. The Calcutta game (documented 1804) had been joined by all three Presidency capitals.
Kent vs MCC
1813-09-09
On 9-10 September 1813 Kent played the MCC at the Vine, Sevenoaks — the first post-war major match at the historic Kent ground and the start of the Vine's revival as a regular major venue. The Vine had hosted little major cricket since 1808; the September 1813 fixture marked its return to the front rank.