1754 English cricket season
Cricket season review
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Details have survived of four eleven-a-side matches in the 1754 English cricket season, and two notable single wicket matches.[note 1] Dartford was the pre-eminent club. The Leeds Intelligencer, forerunner of the Yorkshire Post, began publication; it has always been a noted source for cricket in Yorkshire.
Eleven-a-side matches
- London v Dartford
- 1 July, Artillery Ground.[5]
- The Daily Advertiser on Friday, 28 June, announced: "Wickets pitched at Twelve, and to begin play at One". London made 78 and 50; Dartford replied with 55 and 74/7. Dartford won by 3 wickets.[6]
- Woolwich v Dartford
- 24 August, Barrack Field, Woolwich.
- Dartford won.[6]
- Dartford v Woolwich
- 26 August, Dartford Brent.
- Woolwich won.[6]
- Both of the Dartford v Woolwich games were mentioned in the same report by Read's Weekly Journal dated Saturday, 31 August: "Dartford won away & lost at home against Woolwich on Sat. & Mon., 24 & 26 Aug. respectively".[6]
Single wicket
The Daily Advertiser on Friday, 28 June, announced for the same day a two-a-side game "behind George Taylorâs at Deptford". The players were Tom Faulkner and Joe Harris v John Capon and Perry.[6]
Tuesday, 24 September. A single wicket game at Brompton in Kent between the well-known Thomas Brandon of Dartford and a player called Parr of Chatham. The stakes were five guineas each and Brandon won by 47 runs.[8]
Other events
21â22 June (FâS). Midhurst & Petworth v Slindon on Bowling Green, Lavington Common.[9] The former apparently won by eight wickets, and the match seems to mark the swansong of Slindon as a great team, as they are not mentioned in the sources thereafter. Sussex cricket as a whole went into decline for many years and, although a number of inter-parish games were recorded over the next decade or so, it was not until 1766 that Sussex again took part in historically important matches. This temporary demise of Sussex is probably explained by the death of the 2nd Duke of Richmond in 1750. He was the greatest patron of Sussex cricket, and of Slindon in particular. His co-patron and good friend Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet, had died in 1744.[10]
First mentions
Notes
- Some eleven-a-side matches played from 1772 to 1863 have been rated "first-class" by certain sources.[1] However, the term only came into common use around 1864, when overarm bowling was legalised. It was formally defined as a standard by a meeting at Lord's, in May 1894, of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and the county clubs which were then competing in the County Championship. The ruling was effective from the beginning of the 1895 season, but pre-1895 matches of the same standard have no official definition of status because the ruling is not retrospective.[2] Matches of a similar standard since the beginning of the 1864 season are generally considered to have an unofficial first-class status.[3] Pre-1864 matches which are included in the ACS' "Important Match Guide" may generally be regarded as important or, at least, historically significant.[4] For further information, see First-class cricket.