Cambridgeshire County Cricket Club

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Cambridgeshire County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Cambridgeshire and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy.

The club is based at The Avenue Sports Club, March, though they have played a number of matches at Fenner's, Cambridge University's ground, and occasionally play games there still. In recent years, matches have also been held at Wisbech and Saffron Walden (in northeastern Essex).

The Minor Counties play three-day matches at a level below that of the first-class game. At present, the club competes in the Eastern Division of the Minor Counties Championship.

Contents

[edit] Honours

  • Minor Counties Championship (1) - 1963; shared (0) -
  • MCCA Knockout Trophy (2) - 1995, 2003

[edit] Earliest cricket

Cricket must have reached Cambridgeshire in the 17th century. The earliest reference to the game being played there is at Cambridge University in 1710.

Outside the university, the earliest reference is a game in 1758 between the parishes of Saffron Walden and Cambridge.

[edit] Origin of club

Cambridge Town Club and Cambridgeshire was effectively the same team as the town club teams were representative of the county as a whole. The town club first featured in a game against Cambridge University in 1819 and the county name was first used against Surrey in 1857.

The town club must have been formed sometime before 1819 and it seems that this evolved into the original county club which was founded on 13 March 1844.

[edit] Club history

From 1857 until 1871, the county was accorded first-class status. However, the club itself was dissolved in 1869 (according to James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Companion of that year). Two first-class matches arranged in 1869 and 1871 involved playing members of the former club and the team in both these games was called Cambridgeshire by the sources (e.g., Wisden).

The club played 39 first-class matches in all, winning 13, losing 21 and drawing 5. The most successful season was 1864, when all 3 matches played were won. The regular home ground was Fenner's. Thomas Hayward made most first-class appearances, playing in 35 of the matches. He also made most runs, 1934 at 33.34, and scored two of the four centuries made for the county, both in 1861. He and Robert Carpenter put on 212 for the 3rd wicket against Surrey at The Oval in 1861, both scoring centuries. This was the highest partnership for the county. George Tarrant took most wickets: 197 at 12.25, plus a further 22 wickets for which the runs conceded are not known. He had match figures of 15-56 against Kent at Chatham in 1862, including 8-16 in an innings. He also took 8-45 in an innings against Surrey at Fenner's the same year.[1]

In the early 1860s, Carpenter and Hayward were rated as the finest batsmen in England. Richard Daft was among those ranking them as equal first, but George Parr reckoned Carpenter the better of the two.[2]

The present club was founded on 6 June 1891.

Cambridgeshire first took part in the Minor Counties Championship in the competition's fourth season, 1898, and has competed every season since with the exception of 1902 and 1920. It has won the Minor Counties Championship once, in 1963.

Cambridgeshire has won the MCCA Knockout Trophy twice since its inception in 1983. It won in 1995 and 2003.

[edit] Famous players

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

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Wisden Book of County Cricket, by Christopher Martin-Jenkins and Frank Warwick, Queen Anne Press, 1981, pp436-440.
  2. ^ Simon Wilde, Number One: The World's Best Batsmen and Bowlers, Victor Gollancz, 1998, ISBN 978-0-575-06453-9, p49.

[edit] External sources

[edit] Further reading

  • Rowland Bowen, Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970
  • Arthur Haygarth, Scores & Biographies, Volumes 4-11 (1849-1870), Lillywhite, 1862-79
  • E W Swanton (editor), Barclays World of Cricket, Guild, 1986
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Minor counties of English cricket
Western Division:
Eastern Division: