1869 English cricket season
The 1869 English cricket season saw the demise of the Cambridgeshire club. A team called Cambridgeshire played in two specially arranged matches, in 1869 against Yorkshire and in 1871 against Surrey. After that, Cambridgeshire ceased to be a first class team. Their demise was attributed to the lack of available amateurs to back up the famous trio of Bob Carpenter, the first Tom Hayward and George Tarrant, along with the absence of useful patronage and the difficulty of obtaining membership which led to a debt deemed unpayable[1].
1869 was also the season when W. G. Grace began a record-setting run of batting triumphs. For the first of three consecutive seasons, he established a new record for most runs in a season, and his six centuries doubled the previous record.
Playing record (by county)[2]
| County | Played | Won | Lost | Drawn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cambridgeshire | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Kent | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| Lancashire | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Middlesex | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Nottinghamshire | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 |
| Surrey | 12 | 3 | 7 | 2 |
| Sussex | 7 | 1 | 5 | 1 |
| Yorkshire | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
Leading batsmen (qualification 15 innings)
| 1869 English season leading batsmen[4] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Team | Matches | Innings | Not outs | Runs | Highest score | Average | 100s | 50s |
| WG Grace | MCC | 15 | 24 | 1 | 1320 | 180 | 57.39 | 6 | 3 |
| Roger Iddison | Lancashire Yorkshire |
9 | 15 | 5 | 353 | 112 | 35.30 | 1 | 0 |
| Harry Jupp | Surrey | 22 | 41 | 5 | 1129 | 106 not out | 31.36 | 2 | 7 |
| Isaac Walker | MCC Middlesex |
12 | 18 | 0 | 540 | 90 | 30.00 | 0 | 5 |
| Henry Charlwood | Sussex | 10 | 18 | 1 | 483 | 155 | 28.41 | 1 | 2 |
Leading bowlers (qualification 800 balls)
| 1869 English season leading bowlers[5] | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Team | Balls bowled | Runs conceded | Wickets taken | Average | Best bowling | 5 wickets in innings |
10 wickets in match |
| Thomas Hearne | MCC | 1614 | 439 | 47 | 9.34 | 6/12 | 4 | 0 |
| George Freeman | Yorkshire | 2161 | 584 | 60 | 9.73 | 8/29 | 6 | 2 |
| William Hickton | Lancashire | 1301 | 448 | 39 | 11.48 | 6/27 | 5 | 2 |
| Tom Emmett | Yorkshire | 2169 | 721 | 60 | 12.01 | 9/23 | 7 | 2 |
| Jem Shaw | Nottinghamshire All England Eleven |
2633 | 810 | 65 | 12.46 | 8/20 | 9 | 3 |
Notable events
- June 3: Although Parr, Carpenter and Hayward declined to play, the schism between the northern and southern professionals ended and the North v South match resumed at Kennington Oval. Freeman and Wootton were too good for the South, who lost by nine wickets on a pitch ruined by a very wet May[6]
- July 13: Tom Emmett becomes the first bowler to take sixteen wickets in a single day in first-class cricket, when against the dying Cambridgeshire club he takes 16 for 38 on a cut-up wicket described as “about as serviceable for cricket as a ploughed field”[7]. This feat has since been accomplished by James Southerton, Thomas Wass (twice), Bert Vogler, Colin Blythe, Jack White, Hedley Verity and Tom Goddard (the last to do so in 1939).
- July 16 and 17: The Gentlemen of the South, scoring 553 against the Players of the South, achieve the highest total in first-class cricket, beating the four-year old MCC record of 523[8]
- W.G. Grace and Bransby Cooper achieved a first-wicket record of 283 runs, which was not beaten until Herbie Hewett and Lionel Palairet scored 346 for Somerset against Yorkshire in 1892.
Annual reviews
- John Lillywhite's Cricketer's Companion (Green Lilly), Lillywhite, 1870
- Arthur Haygarth, Scores & Biographies, Volume 11 (1869–1870), Lillywhite, 1871
- John Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanac, 1870
External sources
- ^ Baily’s Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, Volume 16 (1869); p. 246
- ^ Wynne-Thomas, Peter; The Rigby A-Z of Cricket Records; p. 53 ISBN 072701868X
- ^ Hampshire, though regarded until 1885 as first-class, played no inter-county matches between 1868 and 1869 or 1871 and 1874
- ^ First Class Batting in England in 1869
- ^ First Class Bowling in England in 1869
- ^ Hadley Centre Ranked England and Wales Precipitation
- ^ Baily’s Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, Volume 17 (1869); p. 95
- ^ Webber, Roy; The Playfair Book of Cricket Records; p. 18. Published 1951 by Playfair Books