Contents
Important Matches / First Class Matches
In 1988, the Association of Cricket Statisticians (ASC) published a booklet entitled A Guide to Important Cricket Matches played in the British Isles 1709-1863. This publication aimed to provide a definitive list of all matches of historic significance which had taken place before 1864. The significance 1864 was that the consensus of statisticians agreed with Roy Webber, who argued that the majority of matches before that year (i.e. the year in which overarm bowling was legalised) “cannot be regarded as first-class” and their records are useful only “for their historical associations”, whatever that means. My understanding is that the word important was only meant to be an ordinary adjective but has since become capitalised as conferring particular status on matches included in the listing. Rightly or wrongly, I have carried this on. Such matches include those with more players than eleven a side, but not single-wicket matches. Later, Bill Frindall proposed the introduction of roundarm bowling in 1815 as the appropriate date for the start of first-class cricket and earned limited support.
The ACS sometimes uses the term ‘great matches’ to refer to the most important matches played before 1800, and sometimes refers to the equivalent matches before 1863 (the year in which overarm bowling was legalised) simply as ‘important’ matches. These terms are used to draw attention to the fact that there were many differences in the way in which the game was played in those days. Nevertheless, from 1772 there is now have an established list of the matches that were, by the standards of the time, the most important games played in each year and these matches are regarded as ‘first-class’.
More recently, the online databases, Cricket Archive and ESPNcricinfo, have accorded First Class status to some matches between 1772 and 1863, including 232 matches of the eighteenth century. the criteria seem to be Important Matches for which we have a scorecard. The opinion of these databases has been rejected by both Wisden (who take 1815 as the start date) and Playfair Cricket Annual (who take 1864). This website, however, goes along with Cricket Archive but mostly refers to Important Matches rather than first-class matches. It is worth noting that, in 2022, there was widespread celebration of the 250th anniversary of Cricket Archive’s initial first-class match on 24 and 25 June 1772, the MCC joining in, so momentum would seem to be with this viewpoint.
Of the matches listed by the ACS, 845 took place before 1800. The listing of those matches is reproduced here.
Single / Double wicket matches
Double wicket matches are matches of cricket played as we would recognise now – that is to say, on a pitch with two wickets and two batsmen.
Single wicket matches were played with only one wicket, and one batsman at any one time, a now archaic form of the game. They could be between individual players, but were often between teams of up to six players. There were four principal differences from the double-wicket game. They were popular as exhibition matches bringing elite players together, largely because the transporting of complete teams in the pre-railway era was a slow and expensive matter.
1. No overs – The players did not change ends, there were no overs, and a bowler could bowl unchanged.
2. There and back scores one run – Each batsman bats alone and is safe only within the popping crease. To score one run, the batsman had to run to the bowler’s end, tap the bowling stump, and return to the wicket.
3. Strike from the crease – The batsman had to keep one foot grounded within the popping crease when striking, otherwise the umpire called “No hit,” and no run was counted.
4. Score in front of the wicket only – The ball was dead upon passing behind the wicket, so the batsman could neither be caught out behind the wicket, nor stumped. The batsman could not score from any stroke that goes behind the wicket. There were no byes or overthrows.
A list of significant single-wicket matches played before 1800 may be found here.
Number of players per team
While the basic idea was that cricket was an eleven-a-side game, there were numerous exceptions to this. One reason was that in order to correct the imbalance between teams, the side deemed to be of lesser strength was often allowed more than eleven players, in the case of a match at Swaffham, Norfolk July 17th 1797 between XI of All England and Norfolk, Norfolk were allowed 33 players – it didn’t help though, they still lost by an innings. Also, matches would sometimes be organised between sides of different numbers – maybe 12 a side.
The current cricket laws allow for sides to consist of more than eleven players per side, but with the important rider that only eleven players can be in the field at any one time, any surplus players must sit it out. It is not clear to me how fielding arrangements were handled in the Eighteenth Century, presumably, all players fielded, but I have not seen this confirmed.
Important Matches include those with various numbers of players per team, but First Class matches are restricted to eleven-a-side.
Different levels of matches
- Organised by wealthy landowners – the precursor of professional and County cricket. Essentially, these are the basis of the Important Match listing.
- Contests between cricketing towns and their clubs – what we would now see as Club cricket
- Between local parishes – what we would now see as village cricket
- School cricket – within schools only, inter-school matches lay in the future.
- Women’s cricket – not a huge amount, but there was some.
- Informal matches within parishes, colts matches, etc. – the rest.
League cricket and competitions
Just to be clear, there was none. The first recorded cricket league in the world was the Birmingham League, founded in 1888. All matches in the Eighteenth Century were stand-alone affairs.
Modern versions of single-wicket cricket
While the single wicket format has more or less died out, I will just briefly record here that three well-promoted competitions in England have tried to revive it, or something like it. These were as follows:
- 1960s – Carling Trophy for all-rounders
- 1979 – Courage International Batsman of the Year
- 1980s – Silk Cut Challenge for all-rounders