#cricket history

7 incidents tagged

The Final Gentlemen v Players Match — Lord's, September 1962

Gentlemen of England vs Players of England

1962-09-04

The Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's in September 1962 was the last in a series stretching back to 1806 — 156 years of the annual fixture that had formally separated cricket's amateurs from its professionals. The MCC had announced in November 1962 that the distinction between gentlemen and players would be abolished from 1963; the match was played with both sides knowing it was the end of an era.

#gentlemen-vs-players#lord-s#1962

⭐Mild

W.G. Grace's First-Class Debut — Gentlemen v Players of the South, June 1865

Gentlemen of the South vs Players of the South

1865-06-22

On 22 June 1865, sixteen days short of his seventeenth birthday, William Gilbert Grace played his first first-class match. Picked by the Gentlemen of the South against the Players of the South at the Oval mainly for his bowling, he and I.D. Walker bowled unchanged through both Players innings. Grace took 13 wickets in the match. Although the Players won by 118 runs, the cricket world had its first sight of the man who would dominate the sport for the next thirty years.

#wg-grace#first-class-debut#1865

⭐Mild

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

🚨Moderate

The Decline of Gambling on Cricket — Betting Falls from Fashion, 1850s

Various

1852-01-01

Through the first half of the nineteenth century gambling on cricket had been endemic — matches were arranged with betting as the primary purpose, and some were fixed to ensure the desired result. By the 1850s the gambling culture had declined sharply under Victorian moral pressure, the rise of professional touring cricket and the growing influence of the MCC, which increasingly discouraged wagering at Lord's. The 1850s were the decade in which cricket gambling moved from mainstream to disreputable.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1850s

⭐Mild

John Wisden — From Cricketer to Publisher: The Seeds of the Almanack, 1850–1864

United All-England Eleven and various

1850-01-01

The decade of the 1850s was, for John Wisden, a transition from cricketer to entrepreneur. Having bowled all ten North batsmen at Lord's in 1850, co-founded the UAEE in 1852 and retired from serious cricket by the early 1860s, Wisden channelled his commercial energy into a sports goods shop and then, in 1864, into the publication that bears his name — the world's oldest sports annual.

#roundarm-era#early-victorian#1850s

⭐Mild

Old John Small Dies — The Last of the Hambledon Men, 1826

n/a

1826-12-31

John Small the elder, Hampshire batsman of the great Hambledon era and inventor of the straight bat, died at Petersfield in 1826 at the age of 89. With his death the last of the original Hambledon Men was gone, severing the living link between modern Lord's-centred cricket and the village game that had dominated the eighteenth century.

#john-small#hambledon#1826

⭐Mild

First Match at the Modern Lord's — MCC v Hertfordshire, 22 June 1814

Marylebone Cricket Club vs Hertfordshire

1814-06-22

On Wednesday 22 June 1814, three weeks after the new ground had opened to club practice, Marylebone Cricket Club played Hertfordshire in the first formal match on the third Lord's ground at St John's Wood. MCC won by an innings and 27 runs. The fixture, intended as a low-key inaugural rather than a great public occasion, has since become the recognised birth-date of the modern Lord's and a landmark in the history of the sport.

#mcc#hertfordshire#lord-s