1895 English cricket season

1895 English cricket season

Cricket formats	first-class, minor counties

The 1895 English cricket season was the inaugural season in which official first-class cricket was played, following the 1894 ruling.

Surrey won the County Championship title for the fifth time in six years, despite increased competition, as the tournament was expanded from nine to fourteen teams. The points system for the Championship was changed, as the teams played differing amount of games, and this new system involved dividing the number of points by the number of matches that ended in either a win or a loss. Draws were thus completely disregarded, as they gave zero points. Derbyshire was the best debutant team, taking fifth place.

Another championship made its bow as this season was the first to stage the Minor Counties Championship. The inaugural title was shared by three teams: Durham, Norfolk and Worcestershire.

In the early part of the season improved batting conditions and long spells of dry weather caused much heavier scoring than in previous seasons. There were a number of very large scores up until mid-July, when Archie MacLaren played his famous innings of 424 for Lancashire against Somerset at Taunton. However, after this point, rain returned and most pitches from 20 July onwards were sticky, with the result that bowlers dominanted the latter part of the season. Charlie Townsend got an amazing amount of spin on the ball on these treacherous pitches - taking 122 wickets in the last 11 county games - whilst established bowlers like Peel, Richardson, Mold and Briggs were also very difficult.

At the age of 46 (when the season began), WG Grace enjoyed a remarkable renaissance, being the leading run-scorer in all first-class matches and averaging over 50. He became the first player ever to score one thousand runs during the month of May and also the first to reach the career landmark of one hundred first-class centuries.

Honours

• County Championship - Surrey
• Minor Counties Championship - Durham, Norfolk, Worcestershire (shared title)
• Wisden - WG Grace

County Championship

Final table

County Championship 1895 - Final Standings
	Team	P	W	L	D	A	Pts	GC^1	Pts/GC (as %)
1	Surrey	26	17	4	5	1	13	21	61.90
2	Lancashire	22	14	4	3	1	10	18	55.56
3	Yorkshire	26	14	7	5	0	7	21	33.33
4	Gloucestershire	18	8	6	4	2	0	14	14.29
5	Derbyshire	16	5	4	7	0	1	9	11.11
6	Middlesex	18	6	6	6	0	0	12	0.00
6	Warwickshire	18	6	6	6	0	0	12	0.00
8	Somerset	18	6	8	3	1	-2	14	-14.29
9	Essex	16	5	7	4	0	-2	12	-16.67
10	Hampshire	16	6	9	1	0	-3	15	-20.00
11	Sussex	18	5	9	4	0	-4	14	28.57
12	Leicestershire	16	3	10	3	0	-7	13	-53.85
12	Nottinghamshire	18	3	10	5	0	-7	13	-53.85
14	Kent	18	3	11	4	0	-8	14	-57.14

• ¹ Games completed

Points system:

• 1 for a win
• 0 for a draw, a tie or an abandoned match
• -1 for a loss

Most runs in the County Championship

1895 County Championship - leading batsmen
Name	Team	Matches	Runs	Average	100s	50s
Bobby Abel	Surrey	26	1787	51.05	4	6
Albert Ward	Lancashire	21	1446	43.81	1	11
WG Grace	Gloucestershire	18	1424	50.85	4	3
Ranjitsinhji	Sussex	18	1364	41.33	2	10
John Tunnicliffe	Yorkshire	26	1167	27.13	2	6

Most wickets in the County Championship

1895 County Championship - leading bowlers
Name	Team	Matches	Balls bowled	Wickets taken	Average
Tom Richardson	Surrey	25	6773	239	13.78
Arthur Mold	Lancashire	21	6484	182	13.71
Bobby Peel	Yorkshire	24	6884	136	14.80
George Herbert Hirst	Yorkshire	26	5516	130	16.93
Charlie Townsend	Gloucestershire	12	3376	124	12.58

Overall first-class statistics

Leading batsmen

1895 English cricket season - leading batsmen
Name	Team(s)	Matches	Runs	Average	100s	50s
WG Grace	England, Gentlemen, Gloucestershire, MCC, South of England	29	2346	51.00	9	5
Bobby Abel	Players, South of England, Surrey	32	2057	44.71	5	6
Albert Ward	England, Lancashire, North of England, Players	27	1790	42.61	2	12
Ranjitsinhji	England, Sussex	21	1775	49.30	4	11
Andrew Stoddart	Gentlemen, I Zingari, MCC, Middlesex, South of England	25	1622	37.72	2	11

Leading bowlers

1895 English cricket season - leading bowlers
Name	Team(s)	Matches	Balls bowled	Wickets taken	Average
Tom Richardson	Players, South of England Surrey	31	8456	290	14.37
Arthur Mold	England, Lancashire, North of England, Players	27	8143	213	15.96
Bobby Peel	North of England, Players, Yorkshire	32	8509	180	14.97
Walter Mead	England, Essex, MCC, South of England	23	6034	179	14.55
George Herbert Hirst	North of England, Yorkshire	32	6312	150	17.06

Annual reviews

• James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual (Red Lilly), Lillywhite, 1896
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1896

External links

• Cricket in England in 1895