1797 English cricket season

The 1797 cricket season was the 200th in England since the earliest known definite reference to cricket in January 1597 (i.e., Old Style – 1598 New Style). MCC enjoyed great success on the field, winning nine of their eleven known matches.

WDC has this game taking place on 10–11 May and ACS includes both entries. The above is believed correct.

This was postponed till Mon 3 July: it must have rained.

S&B calls this Earl of Winchilsea v Beauclerk but that is unlikely; Britcher has Lennox as the patron and that seems more probable at this time.

This a game between two sections of the Montpelier Club: i.e., its Monday & Saturday members versus its Thursday members.

# This match was unknown until Britcher’s scores came to light recently. It is a minor match involving the same teams as in the game reported by WDC on 27 Sept. Both sources refer to the counties in their match titles (Kent v Surrey) but they are definitely the Woolwich and Croydon clubs playing in each game.

^ Montpelier’s teams in these three games against MCC were much stronger than the normal club sides of the time, especially with given men. The majority of players are recognised and these are major fixtures.

There was no Sunday play in this game (i.e., on Sun 24 Sept).

# WDC calls this "Kent v Surrey" but the teams were weak and unrepresentative of the counties so it was surely a rematch of Woolwich v Croydon on 23–24 August.|-

Note that many scorecards in the 18th century are unknown or have missing details and so it is impossible to provide a complete analysis of batting performances: e.g., the missing not outs prevent computation of batting averages. The "runs scored" are in fact the runs known.

Lord Frederick Beauclerk scored 758 runs to top the 1797 run-scoring list

Others who scored more than 200 runs were John Hammond 603; John Tufton 592; Tom Walker 491; William Beldham 430; Edward Bligh 382; William Fennex 346; Robert Robinson 310; James Aylward 296; Charles Lennox 270; Henry Tufton 246; Harry Walker 243; Jack Small 227; Thomas Ray 214

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Wikipedia