Bedfordshire County Cricket Club

Bedfordshire County Cricket Club is one of 20 Minor County clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Bedfordshire.

Bedfordshire County Cricket Club
Personnel
CaptainJames Middlebrook
ManagerPaul Oakins
Team information
Founded1899
Home groundVarious
History
Minor Counties Championship wins2
MCCA Knockout Trophy wins1
Official websiteBedfordshire CCC

The team is currently a member of the Minor Counties Championship Eastern Division and plays in the MCCA Knockout Trophy. Bedfordshire played List A matches occasionally from 1967 until 2005 but is not classified as a List A team.[1]

History

Cricket had probably reached Bedfordshire by the end of the 17th century. The earliest reference to cricket in the county is a match in August 1741 at Woburn Park between a Bedfordshire XI and a combined Northants and Huntingdonshire XI.[2] Woburn Cricket Club, under the leadership of the Duke of Bedford, became prominent in the 1740s and took part in a number of "great matches" against opponents such as London Cricket Club.

A county organisation has been traced back to May 1847 and a Bedfordshire team competed in the very first Minor Counties Championship in 1895, with six other teams: it finished fourth. The county then missed the next four seasons before the current Bedfordshire County Cricket Club was founded on 3 November 1899,[3] at which point it rejoined the competition in 1900. It has not missed any seasons since.

Honours

The county has won the Minor Counties Championship twice, in 1970 and in 1972, and shared the title in 2004 after drawing the title playoff match against Devon. The MCCA Knockout Trophy was won in 1999.

  • Minor Counties Championship (2) - 1970, 1972; shared (1) - 2004
  • MCCA Knockout Trophy (1) - 1999

Notable players
See List of Bedfordshire County Cricket Club List A players and Category:Bedfordshire cricketers

The following Bedfordshire cricketers also made an impact on the first-class game:

Rex Alston, who captained the side in 1932, subsequently became famous as a BBC radio commentator on cricket and other sports.

Grounds
Main article: List of Bedfordshire County Cricket Club grounds

The club have no fixed home, but most of their matches are played in Wardown Park, Luton. Other recently used grounds include:

References
  1. "List A events played by Bedfordshire". CricketArchive. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  2. Waghorn HT (1899) Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730-1773), p.27. Blackwood.
  3. Bowen (1970) Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development, p.274. Eyre & Spottiswoode.
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