1764 English cricket season

1764 English cricket season
Cricket formats first-class and single wicket

Chertsey Cricket Club and Hambledon Club, by now the leading teams in English cricket, played each other three times in the 1764 English cricket season. A number of notable players were mentioned in sources for the first time, including three of the greatest 18th century players: Richard Nyren, John Small and Lumpy Stevens. The 1764 season marks the beginning of the "Hambledon Era" in earnest and it is believed to be about this time that the Hambledon Club was founded. The team must have continued to make a name for itself ever since the tri-series v Dartford Cricket Club in 1756, but there can be no doubt that the records of many matches have been lost.

Matches

Date Match Title Venue Result
23 August (Th) Norfolk v Suffolk [1] Bury St Edmunds Race Course Norfolk won

This was reported in the Gazetteer & London Daily Advertiser on Tues 28 August.

28 August (Tu) Romford v Dartford [1] Romford Race Course result unknown

This was announced in the Chelmsford Chronicle on Fri 24 August. Dartford was a leading club; it is interesting they travelled to play an Essex team on presumably level terms as this would suggest that playing standards in Essex were good at this time.

10 & 11 September (M-Tu) Chertsey v Hambledon [2] Laleham Burway Hambledon won by 4 wkts

The team scores were: Chertsey 48 and 127; Hambledon 76 and 100-6. The stakes were £20 a side.

The Hambledon team is believed to have been: Richard Nyren (captain), John Small, Peter Stewart, William Hogsflesh, William Barber, John Bayton, Osmond, John Woolgar, Edward Woolgar, Thomas Ridge and Squire Thomas Land. Hambledon at this time was sometimes referred to as "Squire Land’s Club". Chertsey is believed to have had three given men from Dartford, perhaps including John Frame. Thomas "Daddy" White and Edward "Lumpy" Stevens may have played for Chertsey. John Edmeads and Thomas Baldwin certainly did for they shared a partnership of 40.[3]

At the end of Monday’s play, Chertsey had scored 115 in their second innings (wickets unknown) and so led by 87. They added 12 in the morning and Hambledon needed exactly 100 to win. They scored them after being 4-3! [2]

Ashley Mote remarks that Richard Nyren travelled to this match leaving a six-months pregnant wife at home (at least, it is assumed she stayed at home!) for the author of The Cricketers of My Time, John Nyren, was born in December.[3]

10 September (M) Suffolk v Norfolk [4] Scole Common Suffolk won
12 September (W) Suffolk v Norfolk [4] Scole Common Suffolk won

The source reports these together and says Suffolk won (both?) "with the greatest of ease".

17 & 18 September (M-Tu) Chertsey v Hambledon [1] Broadhalfpenny Down? Chertsey won by 2 wkts

The return match to the one a week earlier and it was probably at Hambledon but this is not certain. There are references in the Whitehall Evening Post and the St James Chronicle both before and after the game.

24 September (M) Chertsey v Hambledon [1] venue unknown result unknown

The two clubs apparently agreed to stage a decider but it is not known if it ever took place.

First mentions

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 G B Buckley, Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket, Cotterell, 1935
  2. 1 2 H T Waghorn, Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730-1773), Blackwood, 1899
  3. 1 2 Ashley Mote, The Glory Days of Cricket, Robson, 1997
  4. 1 2 H T Waghorn, The Dawn of Cricket, Electric Press, 1906

Bibliography

Additional reading

External links

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