Ridgeway (Sussex cricketer)

Ridgeway (first name and dates of birth and death unknown) was a noted English cricketer of the mid-18th century who played for Sussex and All-England.

Cricket career

He is first recorded in 1743 when he was reported to be "one of the six best players in England".^[1] This was when he was due to play in a big "threes" single wicket match at the Artillery Ground that attracted high stakes and a crowd in excess of 10,000 (according to the London Evening Post).^[1] Ridgeway did not play in the match, however, probably due to injury, and he was replaced by John Cutbush.^[1]

In 1744, Ridgeway played for Slindon against London Cricket Club in the match from which the earliest known scorecard has survived.^[2]

In 1745, after Sussex lost to Surrey at Arundel, Lord John Philip Sackville in a letter dated 14 September to the Duke of Richmond, Sussex's patron said: "I wish you had let Ridgeway play instead of your stopper behind it might have turned the match in our favour".^[3] That is the last report for this player, whose career probably began in the 1720s or 1730s when match reports did not include much detail.^[4]

References

External links

• From Lads to Lord's – biography of Ridgeway

Bibliography

• F S Ashley-Cooper, At the Sign of the Wicket: Cricket 1742–1751, Cricket Magazine, 1900
• Timothy J McCann, Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century, Sussex Record Society, 2004