#regency cricket

13 incidents tagged

William Lambert Banned From Lord's — Match-Fixing in England v Nottingham, 1817

MCC committee vs William Lambert

1817-07-26

Three weeks after scoring the first two centuries in a single match, William Lambert was banned from Lord's by the MCC committee on a charge of having deliberately underperformed in an earlier England v Nottingham match in which both sides had been suspected of arranging the result. The evidence was gathered by Lord Frederick Beauclerk, his old enemy from the 1810 single-wicket affair. Lambert never played senior cricket again. He was, in effect, the first cricketer banned for match-fixing.

#william-lambert#match-fixing#lord-frederick-beauclerk

😂Mild

Squire Osbaldeston's Fast Underarm — Wicketkeepers Stuff Their Shirts With Straw, 1810s

MCC and various private elevens

1816-07-01

Through the 1810s the Yorkshire squire George Osbaldeston was bowling underarm so fast that wicketkeepers reportedly stuffed straw down their shirts as makeshift body padding before facing him. There were no protective gloves, no helmets, no chest guards in 1815 cricket; the underarm ball, skidding low off Lord's pitches at speeds estimated to be the equivalent of a modern medium-pacer, could break ribs and crack collarbones. Osbaldeston's bowling produced more bruised wicketkeepers than any other in his era and gave Regency cricket one of its most enduring slapstick images.

#george-osbaldeston#fast-underarm#wicketkeeper

⭐Moderate

Lord Frederick Beauclerk's Decade — The Cleric Who Ran Cricket, 1810s

MCC and various private elevens

1815-07-01

By the time of the Battle of Waterloo, Lord Frederick Beauclerk — illegitimate descendant of Charles II, vicar of St Michael's, and tactical ruler of the MCC committee — was the leading amateur cricketer in England and the richest gambler in the game. Through the 1810s, with senior cricket reduced by the Napoleonic War to a handful of fixtures a year, Beauclerk's private elevens carried the sport. He earned an estimated 600 guineas a year in betting, banned his enemies from Lord's, and bowled a slow underarm so accurate that one contemporary called it 'the most dangerous in England'.

#lord-frederick-beauclerk#mcc#amateur-cricket

⭐Moderate

Origins of the Wide Ball Law — From Daddy White to MCC, 1809-1811

n/a

1811-05-13

Until 1811 there was no formal law against bowling wide. The MCC's revisions to the Laws of Cricket in 1809 began the move toward outlawing the wide ball, and the formal rule arrived in 1811 — partly in response to the practice (going back to 1771's Daddy White) of batsmen using disproportionately wide bats, partly in response to bowlers like William Lambert who had openly bowled wides to defeat opponents in single-wicket challenges.

#wide-ball#law-change#mcc

⭐Mild

Tom Walker 'Old Everlasting' — The Last Hambledon Hand in the 1800s

Hampshire / Surrey / occasional XIs

1808-07-01

Tom Walker, born at Hambledon in 1762 and nicknamed 'Old Everlasting' for the unhurried, immovable defensive batting that once let him face 170 balls from David Harris for one run, was the last Hambledon man still appearing in important cricket through the early 1800s. His attempted 'higher arm' bowling had been ruled foul play by the Hambledon Club committee in 1788 — a forgotten experiment that John Willes would revive in 1807 and that would eventually become roundarm.

#tom-walker#old-everlasting#hambledon

⭐Mild

Beauclerk's 170 — Highest Score in Cricket, Homerton v Montpelier, 1806

Homerton vs Montpelier

1806-08-15

Playing as a given man for the Homerton club against Montpelier in 1806, Lord Frederick Beauclerk scored 170 — the highest individual score recorded in any form of cricket up to that point. The innings stood as a benchmark of high scoring for fourteen years, until William Ward's 278 for MCC against Norfolk at Lord's in 1820. Although the match was not in itself first-class, the score was a landmark in the gradual stretching of cricket's batting horizon.

#lord-frederick-beauclerk#1806#homerton

⭐Mild

Jack Small Junior — Hambledon's Last Hand at the First Gentlemen v Players, 1806

Gentlemen vs Players

1806-07-21

Jack Small junior, son of the great John Small senior who had scored cricket's first known century in 1775, played for the Players in both inaugural Gentlemen v Players matches in July 1806. He was 40, a sound batsman in his father's mould, and one of the last Hambledon hands still active at major level. His presence in the first Gentlemen v Players is the bridge that links the 1770s Hambledon era to the modern Lord's-centred game.

#jack-small#john-small-junior#gentlemen-vs-players

⭐Mild

Lord Frederick Beauclerk's Two Centuries — First Batsman to Score Two in a Season, 1805

Hampshire vs England; England vs Surrey

1805-08-15

In the summer of 1805 the 32-year-old clergyman Lord Frederick Beauclerk became the first batsman known to have scored two centuries in the same season. He made 129 not out for Hampshire against England at Lord's Old Ground in early July and followed it with 102 for England against Surrey in August. In an era when first-class scores over 50 were front-page news, two hundreds in a season was a feat without precedent.

#lord-frederick-beauclerk#1805#lord-s-old-ground

⭐Mild

The First Eton v Harrow Match — Byron Bats with a Runner, August 1805

Eton vs Harrow

1805-08-02

On Friday 2 August 1805, sixteen schoolboys from Eton and Harrow played the first match between the two schools at Thomas Lord's Old Ground in Dorset Square. Eton won by an innings and two runs. Among the Harrow side was 17-year-old George Gordon Byron, batting with a runner because of his clubbed right foot. The fixture, repeated in 1818 and made annual from 1822, would become the longest-running schools rivalry in cricket and the longest-running fixture at Lord's.

#eton-vs-harrow#1805#lord-byron

⭐Moderate

Cricket Under the Napoleonic War — The Lean Seasons of 1803-1808

n/a

1803-05-18

Britain's Napoleonic War with France, resumed in May 1803 and continued until Waterloo in 1815, drained investment and manpower from English cricket. Only three major matches were recorded in 1803, six in 1805 (the year of Trafalgar), and the entire period from 1811 to 1813 produced just three. The MCC and a handful of well-organised London clubs kept the game alive through the lean years; without them, cricket might have lost a decade.

#napoleonic-war#cricket-decline#1803

⭐Mild

E.H. Budd's First Match at Lord's — Twenty-Two of Middlesex v Twenty-Two of Surrey, September 1802

Twenty-Two of Middlesex vs Twenty-Two of Surrey

1802-09-13

On 13-16 September 1802 a 16-year-old War Office clerk named Edward Hayward Budd appeared in his first match at Lord's, playing for a Twenty-Two of Middlesex against a Twenty-Two of Surrey. He scored 9 and 5 in an odds match that Arthur Haygarth's Scores and Biographies records as his earliest senior fixture. Budd would become, alongside Beauclerk, the dominant gentleman batter of the next twenty years.

#eh-budd#1802#lord-s-old-ground

⭐Mild

William Lambert's Senior Debut — Surrey v England at Lord's, July 1801

Surrey vs England

1801-07-20

On 20-21 July 1801 a 22-year-old village professional named William Lambert appeared for Surrey against England at Thomas Lord's first ground in Dorset Square. Listed tenth in the order, he scored 0 and 5 in a low-scoring defeat. Within a decade he would be ranked alongside Beauclerk and Beldham as the finest all-rounder in England, and in 1817 he would become the first man to score two centuries in the same major match.

#william-lambert#surrey#lord-s-old-ground

⭐Mild

MCC Republishes the Laws of Cricket — 1801 Revision

n/a

1801-05-15

In 1801 the Marylebone Cricket Club, founded only fourteen years earlier, formally revised and republished the Laws of Cricket in their entirety. The new code clarified the rules on bat dimensions, pitch length, no-balls and the duties of umpires. It established the MCC's authority over the laws of the game — an authority the club has retained without serious challenge for 225 years.

#mcc#laws-of-cricket#1801