Controversies in 1862

5 incidents documented

E.M. Grace — The Coroner Who Was England's Best Bat Before His Brother, 1860s

Gloucestershire and All-England representative sides

1862-06-01

Edward Mills Grace — E.M. — the elder of the famous Grace cricketing brothers, was in the early 1860s the most talked-about young batsman in England, predating his younger brother W.G.'s dominance by several years. A Gloucestershire man who worked as a country coroner, E.M. Grace combined an astonishing eye with an unorthodox but devastatingly effective style, and his all-round performances in the late 1850s and early 1860s marked him as a coming great before W.G. had played his first first-class match.

#overarm-era#early-county-cricket#1860s

⭐Mild

Cricket in South Africa — The Cape Colony Game Grows, 1860s

Cape Colony cricket clubs

1862-01-01

Cricket in the Cape Colony of South Africa developed significantly through the 1860s, driven by the British garrison, an expanding settler community and the game's adoption by the English-speaking merchant class of Cape Town. The Western Province Cricket Club, founded in the 1860s, became the organising centre of South African cricket, and the grounds at Cape Town and Paarl hosted matches of improving quality that set the stage for the first English touring side's visit in 1888–89.

#overarm-era#early-county-cricket#1860s

🏏Serious

Edgar Willsher No-Balled Six Times — The Walk-Off That Legalised Overarm, 1862

England XI vs Surrey

1862-08-26

Bowling for an England XI against Surrey at the Oval on 26 August 1862, the Kent left-armer Edgar Willsher was no-balled six times in a row by umpire John Lillywhite for raising his hand above the shoulder. Willsher and the eight other professionals in the team marched off the field in protest, leaving the two amateurs stranded. Lillywhite quietly stood down the next day, and within two years the MCC had legalised overarm bowling.

#edgar-willsher#john-lillywhite#overarm-bowling

⭐Mild

Charles Lawrence — From Stephenson's Tour to Australia's First Professional Coach, 1862

Albert Cricket Club, Sydney; later New South Wales

1862-04-01

When the H.H. Stephenson tour of 1861-62 ended in March 1862, the Surrey-Middlesex left-armer Charles Lawrence stayed behind in Sydney rather than sail home. Engaged by the Albert Cricket Club at Redfern at £300 a year, he became the first paid professional cricket coach in Australian history, captained New South Wales, opened a sports goods shop in George Street, and laid the structural foundations on which the colonial game grew toward Test status.

#charles-lawrence#albert-cricket-club#sydney

⭐Mild

E.M. Grace's MCC v Kent Match — 192 Not Out and 10 Wickets, 1862

MCC vs Kent

1862-08-15

Three years before his younger brother W.G. made his first-class debut, E.M. Grace produced one of the most extraordinary all-round performances in cricket history. Playing for the MCC at Canterbury Week against Kent on 14-15 August 1862, the 20-year-old from Downend carried his bat for 192 not out of an MCC total of 344, then took all ten Kent wickets in the first innings for 69 runs. The match, played 12-a-side, would not enter the official records — but the news of it travelled around the cricket world and made E.M. Grace a household name overnight.

#em-grace#the-coroner#1862