The Cricket Field: Or, the History and Science of the Game of Cricket — John Shaqi
The Cricket Field: Or, the History and Science of the Game of CricketPycroft, James
History
The Cricket Field: Or, the History and Science of the Game of Cricket
Pycroft, James
Cricket
Next in importance to the Kent matches were those of Hampshire and
of Surrey, with each of which counties indifferently the Hambledon
men used to play. For it must not be supposed that the whole county
of Surrey put forth a crop of stumps and wickets all at once: we have
already said that malt and hops and cricket have ever gone together.
Two parishes in Surrey, adjoining Hants, won the original laurels
for their county; parishes in the immediate vicinity of the Farnham
hop country. The Holt, near Farnham, and Moulsey Hurst, were the
Surrey grounds. The match might truly have been called “Farnham’s
hop-gatherers _v._ those of Kent.” The former, aided occasionally by
men who drank the ale of Alton, just as Burton-on-Trent, life-sustainer
to our Indian empire, sends forth its giants, refreshed with bitter
ale, to defend the honour of the neighbouring towns and counties. The
men of Hampshire, after Broadhalfpenny was abandoned to docks and
thistles, pitched their tents generally either upon Windmill Downs or
upon Stoke Downs; and once they played a match against T. Assheton
Smith, whose mantle has descended on a worthy representative, whether
on the level turf or by the cover side. Albeit, when that gentleman
has a “meet” (as occasionally advertised) at Hambledon, he must
unconsciously avoid the spot where “titch and turn”--the Hampshire
cry--did once exhilarate the famous James Aylward, among others, as he
astonished the Farnham waggoner, by continuing one and the same innings
as the man drove up on the Tuesday afternoon and down on the Wednesday
morning! This match was played at Andover, and the surnames of most of
the Eleven may be read on the tombstones (with the best of characters)
in Andover Churchyard. Bourne Paddock, Earl Darnley’s estate, and
Burley Park, in Rutlandshire, constituted often the debateable ground
in their respective counties. Earl Darnley, as well as Sir Horace Mann
and Earl Winchelsea, Mr. Paulet and Mr. East, lent their names and
patronage to Elevens; sometimes in the places mentioned, sometimes at
Lord’s, and sometimes at Perriam Downs, near Luggershal, in Wiltshire.
Middlesex also, exclusively of the Marylebone Club, had its Eleven
in these days; or, we should say, its _twenty-two_, for that was the
number then required to stand the disciplined forces of Hampshire,
Kent, or England. And this reminds us of an “Uxbridge ground,” where
Middlesex played and lost; also, of “Hornchurch, Essex,” where Essex,
in 1791, was sufficiently advanced to win against Marylebone, an
occasion memorable, because Lord Frederick Beauclerk there played
nearly his first recorded match, making scarce any runs, but bowling
four wickets. Lord Frederick’s first match was at Lord’s, 2nd
June, 1791. “There was also,” writes the Hon. R. Grimston, “‘the
Bowling-green’ at Harrow-on-the-Hill, where the school played:
Richardson, who subsequently became Mr. Justice Richardson, was the
captain of the School Eleven in 1782.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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