1827 English cricket season

The roundarm controversy came to a head before the 1827 English cricket season and MCC agreed to the staging of three trial matches between Sussex and All-England. Roundarm's supporters made the grandiose claim that their campaign was a "march of intellect". What the bowlers were really after was of course to claim an advantage over the batsmen.

No firm conclusions were drawn in the immediate aftermath of the trials and it was many years before roundarm was formally legalised. But, in practice, roundarm was adopted in 1827 as its practitioners, especially William Lillywhite and Jem Broadbridge of Sussex, continued to use it with little, if any, opposition from the umpires.

Underarm bowling did not cease, even if it had been superseded. In fact, underarm survived roundarm. Underarm as a tactical alternative to overarm continued into the 20th century.

On 4 June, Cambridge University "versus" Oxford University at Lord's was the first University Match. It became an annual fixture in 1838.

Honours

*Champion County - Sussex

First-class matches

[http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Seasons/Seasonal_Averages/ENG/1827_f_Match_List.html 1827 match list]

Leading batsmen

Yorkshire's Tom Marsden was the leading runscorer with 308 runs @ 25.66; ahead of Kent's James Saunders who had 299 @ 24.91 including the season's only first-class century.

Leading bowlers

William Ashby of Kent was the leading wicket-taker with 29; ahead of Sussex's Jem Broadbridge with 27.

External sources

* [http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Seasons/1827_ENG.html CricketArchive – season summaries]

Annual reviews

* Arthur Haygarth, "Scores & Biographies, Volume 2 (1827-1840)", Lillywhite, 1862