Berkshire County Cricket Club

Berkshire 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 Berkshire and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and MCCA Knockout Trophy.

The club has no fixed address and uses several grounds around the county. These are:

* Falkland CC, Wheatlands Lane, Newbury
* Finchampstead CC, Finchampstead Park, Finchampstead
* Hungerford CC, War Memorial Ground, Bulpit Lane, Hungerford
* Hurst CC, Hurst Lodge, Hurst, Reading
* Kidmore End CC, Gallowstree Common, Kidmore End, Reading
* Maidenhead & Bray CC, Bray Ground, Bray-on-Thames, Maidenhead
* Reading CHC, Sonning Lane, Sonning, Reading
* Reading School, Playing Fields, Erleigh Road, Reading
* Slough CC, Upton Court Road, Slough
* Thatcham CC, Browns Sports Field, Bath Road, Thatcham, Newbury

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

Honours

* Minor Counties Championship (4) - 1924, 1928, 1953, 2008
* MCCA Knockout Trophy (1) - 2004

Earliest cricket

According to Rowland Bowen in his "Growth and Development of Cricket", the first reference to cricket being played in the county of Berkshire was in 1751. But cricket certainly reached Berkshire much earlier than that for it originated on the Weald in Saxon or Norman times and was definitely being played in Berkshire's neighbouring county of Surrey in 1550.

The first definite mention of cricket in Berkshire relates to the famous all rounder Thomas Waymark who resided at Bray Wick, near Maidenhead in the 1740s.

In September 1740, a team called "Buckinghamshire, Berkshire & Hertfordshire" played two matches against the famous London Cricket Club at Uxbridge and the Artillery Ground. London won the first "with great difficulty" but no post-match report was found of the second. See H T Waghorn: "Cricket Scores 1730 - 1773".

By the late 18th century, Berkshire had become a first-class team. Its strength was in the prominent Oldfield Club of Bray, near Maidenhead, which had a team representative of Berkshire as a county and was capable of taking on other leading teams of the time. The first time we encounter Berkshire as a county team is in a match against Surrey in June 1769 and the county was first-class from then until August 1795 when, after losing to MCC at Lord's, it abruptly ceased to appear in important matches.

"For information about Berkshire county teams during the county's period of first-class status and before the formation of Berkshire CCC, see : "Berkshire county cricket teams

Origin of club

The Oldfield Club was effectively a Berkshire county team but it was not formally constituted as a county club. Rowland Bowen's researches discovered evidence of a county organisation by 1841, but it may only have been a loose association of local clubs, as was sometimes the case elsewhere.

Berkshire CCC was founded on 17 March 1895, the same year that the Minor Counties Championship began. It did not compete in the first year of the competition but joined for 1896 and has taken part ever since, winning the title four times with the latest in 2008.

Club history

In 1921, Berkshire were offered first-class status and a place in the County Championship, however they declined the invitation because the team felt they lacked adequate facilities.cite web |url=http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/story/259958.html |title=A brief history of the County Championship |publisher=Cricinfo.com |date=October 2006 Retrieved on 11 October 2008.]

Famous players

The following Berkshire cricketers made an impact on the first-class game:
* Aftab Habib
* Alan Igglesden
* Albert Relf
* Gordon Greenidge
* Graham Roope
* Jimmy Adams
* John Emburey
* Ken Barrington
* Peter May
* Robert Relf (cricketer)
* Thomas Waymark
* Tom Dollery

References

External sources

* [http://berkshireccc.play-cricket.com/home/home.asp Berkshire County Cricket Club website]
* [http://uk.cricinfo.com/link_to_database/NATIONAL/ENG/MINOR/MCCA/ Minor Counties Cricket Association Official Site]

Further reading

* Rowland Bowen, "Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development", Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970
* G B Buckley, "Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket", Cotterell, 1935
* E W Swanton (editor), "Barclays World of Cricket", Guild, 1986
* H T Waghorn, "The Dawn of Cricket", Electric Press, 1906

* Playfair Cricket Annual – various editions
* Wisden Cricketers Almanack – various editions