1789 English cricket season

The 1789 English cricket season featured a total of 14 top-class matches that were played between 18 May and 5 September.

1789 English cricket season

Matches

A total of 14 top-class matches were played during the season from May to September and involved county teams from each of Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Middlesex and Surrey. The England national team took part in three matches, two against the Hampshire XI and one against the Kent XI. In addition, a team called the Gentlemen of England played against the Middlesex XI. There were two matches between teams from West Kent and East Kent, both won by East Kent. A team from the Hornchurch club hosted the MCC in August, and there was a match between teams named A to M and N to Z at Lord's Old Ground.[1][2][3]

Other events

The British ambassador to France, the Duke of Dorset, a leading patron of cricket, reportedly organised a team of English cricketers to visit France and play matches there in August. The team included William Yalden and, having assembled in London, they had travelled to Dover where, unexpectedly, they met the Duke himself coming the other way, returning to England following the outbreak of the French Revolution. The venture was cancelled.[4][5] According to John Major in More Than A Game, "the whole story is nonsense".[6] On 16 July, two days after the Storming of the Bastille, Dorset had written to Foreign Secretary Francis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds, about the crisis and had warned other British residents to leave Paris so, Major contends, he would hardly have invited a cricket team to come to France at such a time.[7]

References
  1. Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS) (1981) A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709 – 1863. Nottingham: ACS.
  2. England Domestic Season 1789 - Fixtures and Results, CricInfo. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  3. First-class matches in England, 1789, CricketArchive. Retrieved 2019-12-10. (subscription required)
  4. Keating F (2001) 'A pre-tour wrangle with India is par for the course', The Guardian, 2001-12-03. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  5. Lot 491: The first printing of the 1788 MCC Laws of Cricket in an English newspaper, Bonhams. Retrieved 2019-12-07.
  6. Major, John (2007). More Than A Game. London: HarperCollins. p. 86. ISBN 978-00-07183-64-7.
  7. Major, p. 87.

Further reading
  • Altham, H. S. (1962). A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914). George Allen & Unwin.
  • Birley, Derek (1999). A Social History of English Cricket. Aurum.
  • Bowen, Rowland (1970). Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development. Eyre & Spottiswoode.
  • Underdown, David (2000). Start of Play. Allen Lane.
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