Lord Hawke's Yorkshire went through the 1908 County Championship season unbeaten, winning the title for the eighth time under his captaincy. The season was capped by their dismissal of Northamptonshire for 27 and 15 — an aggregate of 42, the lowest in English first-class cricket — at Northampton in May, with Hirst taking 12 for 19 in the match.
Hawke had been Yorkshire captain since 1883 and was in his 50s by 1908. He was the architect of the side's professional discipline — he insisted on temperance, punctuality and proper dress for his cricketers, paying his professionals out of season to keep them out of mischief. By 1908 the side was the model of what a county should be.
Hirst and Rhodes, both born in Kirkheaton, were in their 30s and at the absolute peak. Haigh, the third member of the bowling trio, was a slow-medium right-armer of high accuracy and Yorkshire's third-most-prolific wicket-taker.
Yorkshire began the 1908 season with two wins inside the first fortnight. The Northants match at Northampton on 11-12 May was the third championship game of the year.
Yorkshire's dominance of Edwardian county cricket was already established: champions in 1900, 1901, 1902 and 1905. The 1908 season was the high-water mark. Captained still by Lord Hawke (the Eton, Cambridge and Yorkshire amateur who had led the side since 1883), the team comprised Hirst, Rhodes, Schofield Haigh, David Denton, John Tunnicliffe, Hubert Myers, Hubert Sedgwick and the wicketkeeper David Hunter. They played 28 first-class matches and lost none.
The most extraordinary single match was at the County Ground, Northampton, on 11-12 May. Yorkshire batted first and made 356; Northamptonshire replied with 27 in their first innings (Hirst 6 for 12, Haigh 4 for 14) and, following on, 15 in their second (Hirst 6 for 7, Haigh 2 for 8). Their aggregate of 42 was the lowest in any English first-class match and remains so over a century later. The whole match was completed inside two days.
Across the season, Hirst took 174 wickets and made 1,535 runs, Rhodes 115 wickets and 1,673 runs, Haigh 96 wickets at 13.30. The bowling depth was unmatched in the country. Yorkshire took 16 wins from 28 matches; the rest were drawn. Surrey, Lancashire and Kent — the next three in the table — could not match the depth of attack. The championship was clinched at the end of August with weeks to spare.
11-12 May 1908: v Northants at Northampton — Yorkshire 356, Northants 27 and 15.
Hirst takes 12/19 in the match; Haigh 6/22.
16 wins, 12 draws — no defeats.
Hirst: 1,535 runs and 174 wickets in the championship.
Rhodes: 1,673 runs and 115 wickets.
Haigh: 96 wickets at 13.30.
Championship clinched in late August with weeks to spare.
Yorkshire's eighth title under Hawke.
May 1908
Season begins; first wins inside a fortnight.
11-12 May 1908
Northants 27 and 15 at Northampton.
June-July
Hirst-Rhodes-Haigh take wickets in every match.
Aug 1908
Championship clinched with weeks to spare.
Sep 1908
Final standings: 28 matches, 16 won, 12 drawn, 0 lost.
Spring 1909
Wisden hails the season as 'crushing'.
“The best season of my captaincy.”
“Yorkshire's batting and bowling were too good for any English county.”
Hawke continued as captain until 1910 and as Yorkshire president until his death in 1938. Hirst played until 1921, Rhodes until 1930. The county won the championship again in 1912; their next great period was the late 1920s and 1930s under Brian Sellers, with Sutcliffe, Holmes, Hutton, Bowes and Verity.
The Northants 27 and 15 record stood through the rest of the 20th century and survives unchallenged into the 21st.
A season of crushing dominance, in many ways the perfection of the Lord Hawke era at Yorkshire. Eight championships in 16 years between 1893 and 1908, three of them unbeaten, gave the county a status no other side has approached in a comparable period. The Northants 42 stands as the most extreme statement of the side's bowling power.
The 1908 season is widely regarded as the high point of pre-1914 county cricket. The combination of an undefeated championship campaign and the lowest aggregate in first-class history was a unique double. Hawke's testimonial book of 1909 lists 1908 as 'the best season of my captaincy', and successive Yorkshire historians have agreed.
Northamptonshire, who had been admitted to the championship only in 1905, took some years to recover from the May 1908 humiliation. They did not finish above 11th in the championship until 1912.
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.