1878 English cricket season

1878 English cricket season

1878 was the 92nd season of cricket in England since the foundation of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). The first official tour by an Australian team was undertaken, although it played no Test matches. A match at Old Trafford inspired a famous poem.

Champion County

^[a]

• Undecided[1]^[b]

Playing record (by county)

County	Played	Won	Lost	Drawn
Derbyshire	10	3	6	1
Gloucestershire	10	4	2	4
Hampshire	4	0	3	1
Kent	12	6	4	2
Lancashire	10	5	3	2
Middlesex	6	3	0	3
Nottinghamshire	14	7	3	4
Surrey	12	3	6	3
Sussex	8	1	7	0
Yorkshire	14	7	5	2

[1]

Leading batsmen (qualification 20 innings)

1878 English season leading batsmen[2]
Name	Team	Matches	Innings	Not outs	Runs	Highest score	Average	100s	50s
John Selby	Nottinghamshire	21	31	1	938	107	31.26	1	8
Edward Lyttelton	Cambridge University Middlesex MCC	16	26	0	779	113	29.96	1	3
WG Grace	Gloucestershire MCC	24	42	2	1151	116	28.77	1	5
Frank Penn	Kent MCC	12	20	1	534	160	28.10	1	3
George Ulyett	Yorkshire	28	51	4	1270	109	27.02	1	9

Leading bowlers (qualification 1,000 balls)

1878 English season leading bowlers[3]
Name	Team	Balls bowled	Runs conceded	Wickets taken	Average	Best bowling	5 wickets in innings	10 wickets in match
Arnold Rylott	MCC	1944	451	53	8.50	8/15	6	3
Allan Steel	Cambridge University Lancashire	4493	1547	164	9.43	9/63	19	9
Harry Boyle	Australians	1443	483	51	9.47	7/48	4	0
Tom Garrett	Australians	1042	318	32	9.93	7/38	2	1
William Mycroft	Derbyshire MCC	4185	1196	116	10.31	8/36	11	5

Notable events

Main article: Australian cricket team in England in 1878

• Australia made the inaugural first-class tour of England by an overseas team.
• 25 – 27 July: Lancashire versus Gloucestershire at Old Trafford. This was the first time Gloucestershire visited Old Trafford and it caused ground records to be established. The match was drawn after rain interruptions. It has a special place because it ultimately formed the nostalgic inspiration for the famous poem At Lord's by Francis Thompson. In the second innings, the famed "run-stealers" A. N. Hornby and Dick Barlow shared an opening stand of 108, with Hornby going on to score 100. He also became involved in a ferocious argument with WG when a contentious "run-out" was claimed after the batsmen had stopped running because the ball had crossed the boundary. The run-out was finally overruled after WG even went so far as to ask the (Lancashire home) crowd if it had been a four after all. He knew all along that a four had been scored.
• 4 July: Allan Steel becomes the first bowler[4] to take 100 wickets[5] in his first full season of first-class cricket. He played one match in 1877.
• 31 July: Official formation of Northants County Cricket Club at a meeting in the George Hotel, Kettering.
• Alfred Shaw and Fred Morley bowl unchanged through five matches during the season. No other pair has ever managed more than three.[6]
• Shaw becomes the second bowler after James Southerton in 1870 to top 200 wickets in a season.

See also

• W. G. Grace in the 1878 English cricket season
• MCC v Australians at Lord's, 27 May 1878

Notes

^a An unofficial seasonal title sometimes proclaimed by consensus of media and historians prior to December 1889 when the official County Championship was constituted. Although there are ante-dated claims prior to 1873, when residence qualifications were introduced, it is only since that ruling that any quasi-official status can be ascribed.
^b Middlesex, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire were all seen as having some claims to the "Championship", but the general consensus was that none of these teams could claim superiority

References

1. Wynne-Thomas, Peter; The Rigby A-Z of Cricket Records; p. 53 ISBN 072701868X
2. First Class Batting in England in 1878
3. First Class Bowling in England in 1878
4. Webber, Roy; The Playfair Book of Cricket Records; p. 177. Published 1951 by Playfair Books.
5. Gentlemen v Players at the Oval in 1878
6. Frindall, Bill (editor); The Wisden Book of Cricket Records (Fourth edition); pp. 285–289. ISBN 0747222037

Annual reviews

• John Lillywhite's Cricketer's Companion (Green Lilly), Lillywhite, 1879
• James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual (Red Lilly), Lillywhite, 1879
• John Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack 1879

External links

• CricketArchive – season summaries