1868 English cricket season
Cricket season review
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1868 was the 82nd season of cricket in England since the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). It featured the first organised group of Australian sportspeople to travel overseas, being an all-Aboriginal cricket team.[note 1]
Playing record (by county)
| County | Played | Won | Lost | Tied | Drawn |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cambridgeshire | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Kent | 8 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Lancashire | 5 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Middlesex | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Nottinghamshire | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Surrey | 12 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 0 |
| Sussex | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Yorkshire | 7 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Owing to an exceptionally hot and dry summer, and the absence of the forthcoming revolution of the heavy roller,[5] 1868 was to be the last season in which every county match was finished outright. [6]
Leading batsmen (qualification 10 innings)
| 1868 English season leading batsmen[7] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Team | Matches | Innings | Not outs | Runs | Highest score | Average | 100s | 50s |
| W. G. Grace | Gentlemen South of England | 7 | 11 | 2 | 588 | 134 not out | 65.33 | 3 | 2 |
| Isaac Walker | Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Middlesex | 13 | 24 | 5 | 661 | 165 | 34.78 | 1 | 3 |
| James Lillywhite | Sussex | 13 | 24 | 6 | 631 | 126 not out | 30.04 | 1 | 4 |
| Henry Richardson | Cambridge University Kent Middlesex | 10 | 16 | 1 | 431 | 143 | 28.73 | 1 | 3 |
| George Savile | Cambridge University Yorkshire | 7 | 11 | 0 | 294 | 105 | 26.72 | 1 | 2 |
Leading bowlers (qualification 800 balls)
| 1868 English season leading bowlers[8] | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Team | Balls bowled | Runs conceded | Wickets taken | Average | Best bowling | 5 wickets in innings |
10 wickets in match |
| Thomas Hearne | Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Middlesex | 957 | 279 | 33 | 8.45 | 5/20 | 1 | 0 |
| Tom Emmett | Yorkshire | 1628 | 528 | 60 | 8.80 | 9/34 | 5 | 1 |
| George Freeman | Yorkshire | 1560 | 454 | 46 | 9.86 | 8/11 | 6 | 2 |
| Edgar Willsher | Kent | 3999 | 1128 | 113 | 9.98 | 7/44 | 12 | 6 |
| George Howitt | Middlesex Nottinghamshire | 2262 | 734 | 71 | 10.33 | 6/17 | 6 | 2 |
Events
- A team of Aboriginal Australians was the first overseas team to tour England, under the auspices of Sydney publican/cricketer Charles Lawrence. They were not a first class team.
- 25â26 May: Edward Tylecote hits the first recorded score of 300 in any grade of cricket with 404 for Classicals against Moderns at Clifton College[9]
- 20 June: C.A. Absolom became the first player to be given out obstructing the field when playing for Cambridge University v. Surrey at The Oval.
- 3â5 August: Playing for South of the Thames v North of the Thames at Canterbury, W.G. Grace became the second player to score two centuries in a match after William Lambert in 1817.[10]
- The Cattle Market Ground in Islington, the original home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, was sold by its owner for development following the season. The last game, on 5 and 6 October, was between "Gentlemen of Middlesex" and a 22 called "The Clowns".[11] Middlesex were not to have another home until the equally short-lived Prince's Cricket Ground opened.
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.