Lancashire and English County Championship
1928-08-31
From 1926 to 1928 Lancashire won three consecutive County Championships — the only three-in-a-row by any non-Yorkshire county between the wars — built around the Australian fast bowler Ted McDonald, captain Leonard Green, and a settled batting order led by the Tyldesleys.
Nottinghamshire and English county cricket
1928-09-30
Across the 1927 and 1928 county seasons the 23-year-old Notts miner Harold Larwood took 100, 138 and then 138 wickets — establishing himself as the fastest bowler in England and securing his place in the 1928-29 Ashes side that would, four years later, take its leg-theory plans to Australia.
Yorkshire and English County Championship
1925-08-31
Between 1922 and 1925 Yorkshire won four consecutive County Championship titles — the longest unbroken run by any county since the championship became official in 1890. Captained by Geoffrey Wilson and then Major Lupton, the side built around Sutcliffe, Holmes, Rhodes, Macaulay and Robinson lost only 11 of 116 matches across the four seasons.
Middlesex v Worcestershire
1925-07-21
On 21 July 1925 the 36-year-old Patsy Hendren made 277 for Middlesex against Worcestershire at New Road — at the time his career-best, in a 1925 season in which he scored 3,311 runs at 70.44 and was second in the English averages only to Jack Hobbs.
Aubrey Faulkner / Faulkner School of Cricket
1924-04-15
In April 1924 the South African all-rounder Aubrey Faulkner opened the Faulkner School of Cricket in Walham Green, London — the first dedicated indoor coaching school in cricket, and the institutional model for every coaching academy that followed across the 20th century.
Sussex and England
1923-09-15
Through 1922 and 1923, on the advice of his Sussex captain Arthur Gilligan, the 28-year-old off-spinner Maurice Tate switched to fast-medium swing bowling. The change produced 219 wickets in 1923, his Test debut against South Africa at Edgbaston in 1924, and the bowling career that became the model for the English fast-medium swing tradition.
Yorkshire and English County Championship
1923-09-08
In the 1923 County Championship Yorkshire won 25 of their 32 matches under Geoffrey Wilson — at the time the highest number of wins by any county in a single season since the modern Championship began in 1890.
Warwickshire and England
1922-09-15
Ernest 'Tibby' or 'Tiger' Smith of Warwickshire kept wicket for England in 11 Tests between 1911 and 1914 and remained one of the most respected glove technicians in county cricket through the 1920s — keeping in 21 first-class seasons before becoming a coach to Don Bradman in his 1948 tour.
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.
Gentlemen v Players
1898-07-18
MCC arranged the 1898 Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's to begin on 18 July — the 50th birthday of W.G. Grace, who captained the Gentlemen side. Grace, lame and with an injured hand, made 43 and 31 not out in a drawn match. The fixture was treated as a national event: the King (then Prince of Wales) attended, the press described it as a tribute to 'the most celebrated Englishman of his age', and four days later Grace went to Trent Bridge and made 168 against Notts, his highest score of the summer.
Gloucestershire v Sussex/Somerset/Yorkshire/Middlesex/Kent
1895-05-30
Grace started his 1895 season on 9 May and finished it on 30 May with 1,016 first-class runs at an average over 100. Scores of 13, 103, 18, 25, 288, 52, 257, 73*, 18 and 169 made him the first player to score 1,000 first-class runs in May, a Victorian benchmark only matched twice since — by Wally Hammond in 1927 and Charlie Hallows in 1928. He was 46 going on 47.
Eight first-class counties
1890-05-12
On 10 December 1889, secretaries of eight first-class counties met at Lord's and agreed to settle the championship by wins and losses, ignoring drawn games. The 1890 season that followed is the one Wisden and the counties themselves recognise as the first official County Championship. Surrey, captained by John Shuter and powered by George Lohmann and Bobby Abel, won nine of fourteen matches and were declared the inaugural champions — the start of the unbroken competition that still runs today.
Various
1815-08-01
Six weeks after the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 ended twenty-two years of Napoleonic war, English cricket began to revive. Six senior matches were played in the rest of the summer of 1815, more than in any of the previous four years combined. Two centuries were scored at the new Lord's. Soldiers returning from the Peninsula and Belgium rejoined the professional ranks. By the end of the season the sport had pulled back from the brink at which it had stood in 1813.