1726 English cricket season

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[edit] Season Overview

Details remain few but the reports seem to widening in scope because at last we begin to read the names of players as well as patrons. With a name we can envisage a person and with a few more details we can understand something of the character, background and achievements of that person. The first players we know of are Perry of London and Piper of Hampton. They played a single-wicket match and they must have been good players or it would not have been reported. The main story of the year, as in some earlier seasons, concerns cricket's relationship with the law, though once again the issue was non-payment of gambling debts.

[edit] Major Matches

The London Evening Post dated 27 August carried an advertisement for a single wicket match between players called Perry (of London) and Piper (of Hampton, Middlesex). The venue was Moulsey Hurst, near Molesey in Surrey. This is the earliest reference we have of cricket being played there. It was famous for various sporting activities, especially prizefighting, and was often used for cricket throughout the 18th Century.

Date	Match Title	Venue	Source	Result
29 Aug (M)	London & Surrey v Mr Edward Stead’s XI	Kennington Common	WDC	result unknown
? Sept (see 1724)	Chingford v Mr Edward Stead’s XI	Dartford Brent	WDC	result unknown

The match on 29 August was "for 25 guineas between the men belonging to Edward Stead, Esq. of Maidstone and the men of London and Surrey".

The second game is the conclusion of the 1724 match which was unfinished at that time and became the subject of a lawsuit. Lord Chief Justice Pratt ordered it to be played out. It is not known if Dartford Brent was the original venue but it seems certain the match was concluded there.

On the subject of legal matters, Mr G B Buckley recounts a letter written by an Essex resident. The writer complained that a local Justice of the Peace had seen fit to literally read the Riot Act, as it were, to some people who were playing cricket on Saturday 10 September. He had a constable with him who dispersed the players. It seems the JP considered any game or sport as a pretence covering the gathering of disaffected people in order to raise a rebellion! Given the ruling by Lord Chief Justice Pratt, who in effect ordered the game to be played in Dartford, the issue raised was that it was apparently lawful to play cricket in Kent but not in Essex.