Cricket, however, underwent its most material development in the southern counties, more especially in the hop-growing districts. It was at the large hop-fairs, notably that of Weyhill, to which people from all the neighbouring shires congregated, that county matches were principally arranged.
The famous Hambledon Club lasted approximately from 1750 to 1791. Its matches were played on Broad Half-Penny and Windmill Downs, and in its zenith the club frequently contended with success against All England. The chief players were more or less retainers of the noblemen and other wealthy patrons of cricket. The original society was broken up in 1791 owing to Richard Nyren, their “general,” abandoning the game, of which in consequence “the head and right arm were gone.” The dispersion of the players over the neighbouring counties caused a diffusion of the best spirit of the game, which gradually extended northward and westward until, at the close of the 18th century, cricket became established as the national game, and the custom became general to play the first game of each year on Good Friday.
The M.C.C. (or Marylebone Cricket Club), which ranks as the leading club devoted to the game in any part of the globe, sprang from the old Artillery Ground Club, which played at Finsbury until about 1780, when the members migrating to White Conduit Fields became the White Conduit Cricket Club. In 1787 they were remodelled under their present title, and moved to Lord’s ground, then on the site of what is now Dorset Square; thence in 1811 to Lord’s second ground nearer what is now the Regent’s Canal; and in 1814, when the canal was cut, to what is now Lord’s ground in St John’s Wood. Thomas Lord, whose family were obliged to leave their native Scotland on account of their participation in the rebellion of 1745, was born in Thirsk, Yorkshire, in 1757, and is first heard of as an attendant at the White Conduit Club, London, in 1780. Soon afterwards he selected and superintended a cricket ground for the earl of Winchilsea and other gentlemen, which was called after his name. He died in 1832 on a farm at West Meon, Hampshire, of which he took the management two years before. Lord took away the original turf of his cricket-ground at each migration and relaid it. In 1825 the pavilion was burnt down, invaluable early records of the game being destroyed; and in the same year the ground would have been broken up into building plots had not William Ward purchased Lord’s interest. Dark bought him out in 1836, selling the remainder of his lease to the club in 1864. Meanwhile, in 1860, the freehold had been purchased at public auction by a Mr Marsden—né Moses—for £7000, and he sold it to the club six years later for nearly £18,500, a similar sum being paid in 1887 for additional ground. In 1897 the Great Central railway company conveyed a further portion to the club, making the ground complete as it now is; the total area is about 20 acres, including the site of various villas adjoining the ground which are part of the property. The number of members now considerably exceeds five thousand.
Laws.—The oldest laws of cricket extant are those drawn up by the London Club in 1744. These were amended at the “Star and Garter” in Pall Mall, London, in 1755, and again in 1774, and were also revised by the M.C.C. in 1788. From this time the latter club has been regarded as the supreme authority, even though some local modifications have in recent years been effected in Australia. Alterations and additions have been frequently made, and according to the present procedure they have to be approved by a majority of two-thirds of the members present at the annual general meeting of the whole club; the administration being in the hands of a president, annually nominated by his outgoing predecessor, a treasurer and a committee composed of sixteen members, four annually retiring, in conjunction with a secretary and a large subordinate staff.
Implements.—Concerning the implements of the game, in the 1744 rules it was declared that the weight of the ball must be “between five and six ounces,” and it was not until 1774 that it was decided that it “shall weigh not less than five ounces and a half nor more than five ounces and three-quarters,” as it is to the present day. Not until 1838 however came the addition, “it shall measure not less than nine inches nor more than nine inches and a quarter in circumference.” The materials out of which the old balls were made are not on record. At present a cube of cork forms the foundation, round which layers of fine twine and thin shavings of cork are accumulated till the proper size and shape are attained, when a covering of red leather is sewn on with six parallel seams. Various “compositions” have been tried as a substitute for cork and leather, but without taking their place.
For the bat, English willow has been proverbially found the best wood. The oldest extant bats resemble a broad and curved hockey stick, and it has been claimed to be an evolution of the club employed in the Irish game of “hurley.” The straight blade was adopted as soon as the bowler began to pitch the ball up, an alteration which took place about 1750, but pictures show slightly curved bats almost to the time of the battle of Waterloo. The oldest were all made in one piece and were so used until the middle of the 19th century, when handles of ash were spliced into the blade, and the whole cane-handle was introduced about 1860. No limit was set to the length of the bat until 1840, though the width was restricted to 4¼ in. “in the widest part” by the laws of 1788, and a gauge was made for the use of the Hambledon Club. The length of the bat is now restricted to 38 in., 36 being more generally used, as a rule the handle being 14 in. long and the blade 22 in. As to weight, though there is no restriction, 2 ℔ 3 oz. is considered light, 2 ℔ 6 oz. fairly heavy; but W. Ward (1787-1849) used a bat weighing 4 ℔.
At present the wicket consists of three stumps (round straight pieces of wood) of equal thickness, standing 27 in. upright out of the ground. On the top are two “bails,” short pieces of wood which fit into grooves made in the top of the stumps so as not to project more than half an inch above them. But the evolution of the wicket has been very gradual, and the history of it is very obscure, since different types of wickets seem to have existed simultaneously. If early pictures are to be trusted, no wicket was required in primitive times: the striker was either caught out, or run out, the fieldsman having to put the ball into a hole scooped in the ground, before the batsman could put his bat into it. A single stump, it is supposed, was sometimes substituted for the hole to save collision between the bat and the fieldsman’s fingers. In due course, but at an unknown date, a wicket—a “skeleton gate”—was raised over the hole; it consisted of two stumps each 12 in. high, set 24 in. apart, with a third laid on the top of them. John Nyren, however, writing in 1833, and discussing some memoranda given him by Mr W. Ward, says apropos of these dimensions, “There must be a mistake in this account of the width of the wicket.” Undoubtedly such wickets were all against the bowler, who must have bowled over or through the wicket twenty times for every occasion when he succeeded in hitting either the uprights or the cross stump. In pictures of cricket played about 1743 we find only two stumps and a cross stump, or bail, the wicket varying apparently both in height and width. In a picture, the property of H.M. the King, entitled “A Village Match in 1768,” three stumps and a bail are distinctly shown. Two stumps are shown as used in 1779, afterwards three always with one exception. Two prints, advertisements, representing matches played between women on consecutive days in 1811, show, one of them a wicket of three stumps, the other a wicket of two. The addition of the third stump, as is universally agreed, was due to an incident which occurred in a match of the Hambledon Club in 1775. “It was observed at a critical point in the game, that the ball passed three times between Mr Small’s two stumps without knocking off the bail; and then, first a third stump was added, and seeing that the new style of balls which rise over the bat also rise over the wicket, then but 1 ft. high, the wicket was altered to the dimensions of 22 in. by 8, and to its present dimensions of 27 in. by 8 in 1817.” So writes the Rev. J. Pycroft (1813-1895), quoting fairly closely from Nyren, who wrote many years after the event; but Pycroft is wrong in writing 22 by 8, which should really be 22 by 6. It is hard to believe that the 12 by 24 wicket lasted as long as 1775, for in the laws issued after the meeting held at the “Star and Garter,” Pall Mall, where many “noblemen and gentlemen” attended “finally to settle” the laws of the game, we read that the stumps are to be 22 in. and the bail 6. “N.B.—It is lately settled to use three stumps instead of two to each wicket, the bail the same length as before.” Regarding all the circumstances one is tempted to believe that Small defended a wicket of two stumps, 22 in. high and 6 in. apart, strange as is the circumstance that the ball should thrice in a short innings—for Small only made 14 runs—pass through them without dislodging the bail, even though the diameter of the ball is a trifle less than 3 in. Allusion is also found to a wicket 12 in. by 6, but it is hard to believe in its existence, unless it was used as a form of handicap. It should be recorded that in advertisements of matches about this time (1787) the fact that three stumps will be used “to shorten the game” is especially mentioned, and that the Hampshire Chronicle of the 15th of July 1797 records that “The earl of Winchilsea has made an improvement in the game of cricket, by having four stumps instead of three, and the wickets 2 in. higher. The game is thus rendered shorter by easier bowling out.” In 1788, however, when the M.C.C. revised the laws, reference is made to stumps (no number given, but probably three) 22 in. high and a bail of 6 in. Big scoring in 1796 caused the addition next year of 2 in. to the height and of 1 to the breadth, making the wicket 24 in. by 7. That three stumps were employed is shown by a print of the medallion of the Oxfordshire County C.C. 1797, forming the frontispiece to Taylor’s Annals of Lord’s (1903). In 1817 the dimensions now in use were finally settled, three stumps 27 in. high, and a wicket 8 in. wide. Larger wickets have occasionally been used by way of handicap or experiment. The distance between the wickets seems always, or at least as far back as 1700, to have been 22 yds.—one chain.
The Game.—Cricket is defined in the New English Dictionary as “an open-air game played with bats, ball and wickets by two sides of eleven players each; the batsman defends his wicket against the ball which is bowled by a player of the opposing side, the other players of this side being stationed about the field in order to catch or stop the ball.” The laws define that the score shall be reckoned by runs. The side which scores the greatest number of runs wins the match. Each side has two innings taken alternately, except that the side which leads by 150 runs in a three days’ match or by 100 runs in a two days’ match or by 75 runs in a one day match shall have the option of requiring the other side to “follow their innings.” In England cricket is invariably played on turf wickets, but in the Colonies matting wickets are often employed, and sometimes matches have taken place on sand, earth and other substances. The oldest form of the game is probably single wicket, which consists of one batsman defending one wicket, but this has become obsolete, though it was very popular in the time when matches were played for money with only one or two, or perhaps four or five, players on a side. Matches between an unequal number of players are still sometimes arranged, but mainly in the case of local sides against touring teams, or “colts” playing against eleven experienced cricketers. In any case two umpires are always appointed, and for English first-class county cricket these are now annually chosen beforehand by the county captains. Two scorers are officially recognized. All the arrangements as to scoreboards, and accommodation for players, members of the club and general spectators, vary considerably according to local requirements. Between six and seven acres forms the most suitable area for a match, but the size of a cricket ground has never been defined by law.
The wickets are pitched opposite and parallel to one another at a distance of 22 yds.; the “bowling crease” being marked with whitewash on the turf on a line with the stumps 8 ft. 8 in. in length, with short “return creases” at right angles to it at each end; but the “popping crease,” marked parallel to the wicket and 4 ft. in front of it, is deemed of unlimited length. The captains of the opposing sides toss for choice of innings, and the winner of the toss, though occasionally, owing to the condition of the ground or the weather prospects, electing to put his adversaries in first, as a general rule elects for his own side to bat first. The captain of the batting side sends his eleven (or whatever the number of his team may be) in to bat in any order he thinks best, and much judgment is used in deciding what this order shall be. Two batsmen with strong defensive powers and good nerve are usually selected to open the innings, the most brilliant run-getters immediately following them, and the weakest batsmen going in last. As there must always, except in the obsolete single-wicket cricket, be two batsmen in together, it follows that when ten of the side (in a side of eleven) have been put out, one of the final pair must be “not out”; that is to say, his innings is terminated without his getting out because there is none of his side left to become his partner. The batsman who is thus “not out” is said to “carry his bat,” a phrase that recalls a period when two bats sufficed for the whole side, each retiring batsman leaving the implement on the ground for the use of his successor, till at the close of the innings the “not out” man carried it back to the tent or pavilion. As the phrase is not also applied to the last batsman to get out, who would of course have carried the second bat off the ground, it was possibly at one time restricted to a player who going in first survived through the whole innings. It should be observed that the term “wicket” is used by cricketers in a number of different senses. Besides being the name given to the set of three stumps with their two bails when pitched for a match, it is in an extended sense applied to that portion of the ground, also called the “pitch,” on which the stumps are pitched, as when it is described as being “a fast wicket,” a “sticky wicket” and so forth. It also in several idiomatic expressions signifies the getting out of a batsman and even the batsman himself, as in the phrases: “Grace lost his wicket without scoring,” “Grace went in first wicket down,” “when Grace got out England lost their best wicket,” “England beat Australia by two wickets.”
The umpires are required to decide questions arising in the course of play and to call the “overs,” the “over” being a series of successive deliveries of the ball (usually six) by the bowler from one end of the pitch, the rest of the “out” side, or fielders, being stationed in various positions in the field according to well-defined principles. When an “over” has been bowled from one end a different bowler then bowls an “over” from the opposite end, the alternation being continued without interruption throughout the innings, and the bowlers being selected and changed from time to time by the captain of their side at his discretion. At the end of every over the fielders “change over” or otherwise rearrange their places to meet the batting from the other end. An over from which no runs are made off the bat is called a “maiden.” A “run” is made when the two batsmen change places, each running from his own to the opposite wicket without being “run out.” The aim of the batting side is to make as many runs as possible, while the object of the fielding side is to get their opponents out, and to prevent their making runs while in.