#1880s

11 incidents tagged

JJ Ferris — Turner's Left-Arm Partner and Two-Country Bowler

Australia / England (one tour)

1888-09-30

John James Ferris was the left-arm partner who shared the new ball with Charlie Turner through the great Australian bowling years of the late 1880s. He took 61 Test wickets in only 9 matches at 12.70 apiece — one of the best averages in Test history — was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1889, and later qualified for England by residence and toured South Africa as an Englishman in 1891-92, taking 13 wickets in his only Test for his second country. He died of typhoid fever in Durban in 1900, aged 33.

#jj-ferris#left-arm#australia

⭐Moderate

Alec Bannerman — Australia's Original Stonewaller, 1880s

Australia

1888-08-31

Alexander Chalmers 'Alec' Bannerman, younger brother of Test cricket's first centurion Charles Bannerman, played 28 Tests for Australia between 1879 and 1893 as the most determined defensive opener of the 19th century. Where Charles attacked, Alec stonewalled. He never made a Test century in 50 innings; his highest was 94. His patience was a moral asset to a young Test side that could not yet match the depth of England's batting.

#alec-bannerman#australia#opener

⭐Moderate

Bobby Peel — Yorkshire's Slow Left-Armer Emerges, 1882-1888

Yorkshire / England

1888-08-31

Bobby Peel of Yorkshire was the second great left-arm spinner of his county after Edmund Peate, and quickly the better of the two. He made his first-class debut in 1882, became Yorkshire's first-choice slow left-armer when Peate was sacked for drunkenness in 1887, took 100 wickets a season for the next decade and was named one of the first six Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1889. By 1888 he was already England's frontline spinner, sharing 27-wicket days with Lohmann at Lord's against Australia.

#bobby-peel#yorkshire#left-arm-spin

⭐Serious

Johnny Briggs — Lancashire's Spinner-Batsman, 1879-1900

Lancashire / England

1888-08-31

Johnny Briggs of Lancashire was the most engaging all-round cricketer of the 1880s — a popular fielder, a left-arm slow bowler who could turn the ball sharply, and a hard-hitting middle-order batsman with one Test century to his name (121 at Melbourne in 1885). He became the first bowler in Test cricket to take 100 wickets, in February 1895, and finished his career with 118 wickets at 17.75. He suffered an epileptic seizure during the Headingley Test of 1899, returned to play one further season, and died in Cheadle Royal Asylum in January 1902 aged 39.

#johnny-briggs#lancashire#left-arm-spin

⭐Serious

'Give Me Arthur' — Shrewsbury, the Best Pro of the 1880s

England (Notts)

1886-08-10

When asked who he would prefer as his batting partner, WG Grace replied simply, 'Give me Arthur' — meaning Arthur Shrewsbury of Nottinghamshire. Shrewsbury was the best professional batsman of the 1880s, the leader of the 1881 Notts strike, the co-organiser of three private tours of Australia, and Wisden Cricketer of the Year in the inaugural 1890 list (the second list, for batsmen). He killed himself in 1903 aged 47, after years of paranoid hypochondria.

#arthur-shrewsbury#1880s#give-me-arthur

⭐Serious

George Lohmann — Surrey's All-Rounder Emerges, 1884-1888

Surrey / England

1885-08-31

George Alfred Lohmann was the Surrey amateur-turned-professional who became, by 1888, the deadliest English bowler of his generation. He played his first county match in 1884, took 142 first-class wickets and 571 runs in 1885, and made his Test debut in 1886. He went on to take Test wickets at 10.75 — the lowest career average of any Test bowler in history with 50+ wickets — and to record a strike rate (34.1) that no one has ever bettered. By the end of the 1880s he was as central to England's bowling attack as Spofforth had been to Australia's.

#george-lohmann#surrey#1880s

⭐Serious

Jack Blackham — The Prince of Wicket-Keepers, 1880s

Australia

1882-08-29

Jack Blackham of Victoria stood up to the stumps even to the fastest Australian bowlers in the 1880s, in gloves Wisden later described as 'little more than gardening gloves'. He was the wicketkeeper in the inaugural 1877 Test, kept in 35 Tests through 1894, and effectively eliminated the long-stop position from cricket. Wisden called him 'the prince of wicket-keepers' — a title that has stayed attached to him for 140 years.

#jack-blackham#wicketkeeping#australia

⭐Serious

Billy Murdoch — Australia's First Great Captain, 1880s

Australia / England (one Test)

1882-08-29

William Lloyd Murdoch captained Australia in 16 Tests through the 1880s, scored the first Test 200 (211 at the Oval in 1884), held the Test record score (153* against England in 1880) for several years, and was the architect of Australia's 7-run win at the Oval in 1882. He later (controversially) played one Test for England against South Africa in 1891-92.

#billy-murdoch#australia#captain

⭐Moderate

Shaw, Shrewsbury & Lillywhite — The 1880s Private Tour Trio

Private English XI v Australia

1881-09-15

Through the 1880s, three Nottinghamshire and Sussex professionals — Alfred Shaw, Arthur Shrewsbury and James Lillywhite — organised three private English tours of Australia (1881-82, 1884-85, 1886-87) outside MCC channels. They paid their own players, kept the gate receipts, and demonstrated that professionals could run international cricket as a business. Their model prefigured Packer's World Series Cricket nearly a century later.

#alfred-shaw#arthur-shrewsbury#james-lillywhite

😂Mild

George Bonnor — Australia's Bathurst Giant, 1880s

Australia

1880-09-06

George Bonnor stood six feet six, weighed 17 stone and could throw a cricket ball further than any man of his era. The 'Bathurst Giant' played 17 Tests for Australia in the 1880s, hit a six measured at 164 yards out of the MCG, completed three runs from a single shot before being caught at the boundary, and is supposed to have smashed the Melbourne pavilion clock with one stroke. He was the era's tallest, heaviest, biggest-hitting Test cricketer.

#george-bonnor#1880s#australia

🔥Serious

Gentlemen vs Players — The Class Divide in 1880s Cricket

Amateurs v Professionals

1880-07-05

Through the 1880s, English cricket maintained the strict separation of Gentlemen (amateurs, with initials before the surname) from Players (professionals, with initials after). The annual Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's drew vast crowds; behind it lay separate dressing rooms, separate gates, and the awkward fact that some 'amateurs' (notably WG Grace) earned more from cricket than any professional. The Notts strike of 1881 was the era's most public eruption of this contradiction.

#gentlemen-v-players#amateur#professional