Yorkshire CCC
1908-08-31
Under Lord Hawke's captaincy, Yorkshire won the County Championship in 1900, 1901, 1902, 1905 and 1908 — five titles in nine seasons. They went unbeaten in 1900 (their first such season) and again in 1908 ('the clean sheet championship'). Hirst, Rhodes and Haigh were the bowling backbone; Tunnicliffe, Brown and Denton scored the runs.
Surrey, England
1906-09-01
Tom Hayward of Surrey was the second man (after W.G. Grace in 1895) to score 1,000 runs before the end of May, achieving the feat in 1900. In 1906 he set a new English first-class record aggregate of 3,518 runs in a season — a figure not surpassed until Compton and Edrich in 1947.
London County, English first-class counties
1900-04-15
In 1900 W.G. Grace, then 51, took up an offer from the Crystal Palace Company to run a first-class cricket club at Sydenham. London County CC played first-class matches from 1900 to 1904 (their friendly status meant they could not enter the County Championship), then declined as Grace aged. The whole venture closed in 1908 — the same year Grace played his last first-class match.
Middlesex, Leicestershire
1900-07-20
Bernard Bosanquet developed the googly — a leg-spinner's wrong'un that spins from off to leg — from a parlour game called 'Twisti-Twosti' played around 1897 with a tennis ball on a billiard table. He bowled the delivery in first-class cricket for Middlesex v Leicestershire at Lord's in July 1900, dismissing one batsman 'after four bounces'. Within five years it had revolutionised spin bowling.