1864 English cricket season
Cricket season review
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1864 was the 78th season of cricket in England (since the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC)). It was a significant year in cricket history, as it saw the legalisation of overarm bowling and the first edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.[note 1]
Inter-county cricket
The first-class county teams in 1864 were: Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Kent, Middlesex, Notts, Surrey, Sussex and Yorkshire. The unofficial concept of a "champion county" took a new turn when periodicals began publishing tables of inter-county results, although there was still no formal or agreed method of deciding positions in the table. Haygarth usually refers to 'generally agreed' when announcing the Champion County.[5]
| Team | P | W | L | D | Pts[7] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Surrey | 8 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| 2 | Cambridgeshire | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Sussex | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| 4 | Middlesex | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 5 | Nottinghamshire | 7 | 3 | 4 | 0 | -1 |
| 6 | Yorkshire | 7 | 2 | 4 | 1 | -2 |
| 7 | Hampshire | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 8 | Kent | 7 | 0 | 7 | 0 | -7 |
Events
- Law 10 was rewritten by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) to allow a bowler to bring his arm through at any height providing he kept it straight and did not throw the ball. The issue of overarm bowling had crystallised in the Willsher-Lillywhite incident of August 1862.
- 12 January â formation of Lancashire County Cricket Club at a meeting in Manchester.
- 27â29 January â Otago v. Canterbury at Dunedin was the start of first-class cricket in New Zealand.
- Madras v. Calcutta was the start of first-class cricket in India.
- First issue of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. It was titled John Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack until the 1937 edition.[citation needed]
- 6â7 June â Middlesex County Cricket Club played its initial first-class match v. Sussex at Islington
- 9 June â Playing for MCC against Oxford University, H.E. Bull becomes only the second player,[8] and the first since 1827,[9] to be dismissed hit the ball twice in a first-class game.[10]
- 7â8 July â Hampshire County Cricket Club played its initial first-class match v. Sussex at the Antelope Ground, Southampton
- 11â12 July â First appearance of WG Grace in a "big" match, though his first-class debut would not occur until the following season.[11]
- MCC finally purchased the freehold of Lord's Cricket Ground for £18,333 6s 8d with money advanced by William Nicholson.
Leading batsmen (qualification 10 innings)
| 1864 English season leading batsmen[12] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Team | Matches | Inns | Not outs | Runs | Hig score | 100s | Av | |
| George Anderson | Yorkshire | 6 | 11 | 5 | 255 | 99* | 0 | 42.50 | |
| Heathfield Stephenson | Surrey & All England Eleven | 15 | 25 | 4 | 824 | 119 | 2 | 39.23 | |
| Will Mortlock | Surrey County Cricket Club | 18 | 25 | 0 | 855 | 105 | 1 | 34.20 | |
| Tom Hayward Sr. | Cambridgeshire | 8 | 12 | 0 | 355 | 66 | 0 | 29.58 | |
| Bob Carpenter | Cambridgeshire | 8 | 11 | 1 | 270 | 52 | 0 | 27.00 | |
Leading bowlers (qualification 800 balls)
| 1864 English season leading bowlers[13] | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Team | Balls | Runs | Wickets | Best | 5w inns | 10w match | Av |
| George Tarrant | Cambridgeshire | 1610 | 590 | 67 | 7/30 | 8 | 4 | 8.80 |
| James Grundy | Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) & Nottinghamshire | 3466 | 1109 | 99 | 9/19 | 10 | 2 | 11.31 |
| William Fuller-Maitland | Oxford University | 1117 | 521 | 48 | 8/48 | 4 | 2 | 11.84 |
| Edward Walker | Middlesex & Southgate | 1054 | 519 | 42 | 9/63 | 4 | 2 | 12.35 |
| Edgar Willsher | Kent & All England Eleven | 3486 | 1065 | 79 | 7/47 | 6 | 0 | 13.48 |
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 top-class or, at least, historically significant.[4] For further information, see First-class cricket.