1729 English cricket season

Infobox cricket season
season = 1729 English cricket season


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county champions = Sussex
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The 1729 English cricket season is the one in which Samuel Johnson played at Oxford University. The season is also noted for the earliest known innings victory and the earliest known surviving cricket bat.

Honours

* Champion County [An unofficial seasonal title proclaimed by media or historians prior to December 1889 when the official County Championship was constituted] – Sussex (Sir William Gage's XI) [http://www.jl.sl.btinternet.co.uk/stampsite/cricket/histories/champions.html Champion counties from 1728] ]

Matches

Events

There is a bat in The Oval pavilion which belonged to John Chitty of Knaphill, Surrey. Dated 1729, it is the oldest known bat Rowland Bowen, "Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development", Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970] . It looks more like a field hockey stick than a modern cricket bat but its curvature was to enable the batsman to play a ball that was always rolled, as in bowls, never pitched. Pitching began about 30 years later and the straight bats we use nowadays were created in response to the pitched delivery.

The earliest reference to cricket at Oxford University seems to have made by Dr Samuel Johnson, no less. He was there for that one year and says he played cricket there John Major, "More Than A Game", HarperCollins, 2007] .

A local game in Gloucester on Monday 22 September is the earliest known reference to cricket in Gloucestershire .

References

External sources

* [http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Seasons/1729_ENG.html CricketArchive match lists]
* [http://www.jl.sl.btinternet.co.uk/stampsite/cricket/main.html From Lads to Lord's; The History of Cricket: 1300 – 1787]

Further reading

* H S Altham, "A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914)", George Allen & Unwin, 1962
* Derek Birley, "A Social History of English Cricket", Aurum, 1999
* Rowland Bowen, "Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development", Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970
* David Underdown, "Start of Play", Allen Lane, 2000