#1864

3 incidents tagged

John Wisden Publishes the First Cricketers' Almanack — Spring 1864

n/a

1864-04-01

Retired Sussex bowler John Wisden, proprietor of a sports outfitters in Cranbourn Street, brought out the first edition of The Cricketer's Almanack in the spring of 1864. The 112-page shilling pamphlet, padded with the dates of the English Civil War and the winners of the St Leger, was a competitor to Fred Lillywhite's existing Guide and would grow into the longest-running sports annual in history.

#wisden#john-wisden#almanack

⭐Serious

MCC Legalises Overarm Bowling — Law 10 Rewritten, June 1864

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1864-06-10

On 10 June 1864 the Marylebone Cricket Club rewrote Law 10 to permit a bowler to deliver the ball with his arm at any height, provided the action was not a throw. The change ended a half-century of legislative cat-and-mouse over how high a bowler could carry his hand and turned overarm — already the dominant style in practice — into the only style cricket would know.

#mcc#law-change#overarm-bowling

⭐Mild

Alfred Shaw's Emergence — Notts Debut and the Slow-Medium Revolution, 1864-66

Nottinghamshire vs Kent

1864-06-13

On 13 June 1864 a 21-year-old slow-medium bowler from Burton Joyce in Nottinghamshire made his first-class debut at Trent Bridge against Kent. Alfred Shaw — later 'the Emperor of Bowlers', the man who would bowl the first ball in Test cricket — had spent two seasons as a club professional at Grantham and had taken seven Notts wickets for the Colts in 1863. The 1864-66 emergence at Trent Bridge began a career that, more than any other, established the slow-medium length-and-line bowling that defined the next century of cricket.

#alfred-shaw#nottinghamshire#1864