1871 English cricket season

The 1871 English cricket season was exceptionally memorable for a number of reasons. It saw the first-class debut of Derbyshire CCC, and the last first-class matches ever played by Cambridgeshire, who in the days of Bob Carpenter, the first Tom Hayward and George Tarrant had been one of the leading cricket counties.

More significantly, it saw WG Grace surpass his previous season’s record of 1,808 runs and his 1869 average of 57.39 by scoring 2,739 at the staggering average of 78.25 at a time when most pitches were still unrolled and very dangerous to batsmen - though the heavy roller was already producing major improvements to Lord’s and eliminating the fabled bottom-of-the-stump shooters. These were not beaten until Arthur Shrewsbury averaged 78.71 in 1887 and K.S. Ranjitsinhji scored 2,780 runs in 1896.

^a Hampshire, though regarded until 1885 as first-class, played no inter-county matches between 1868 and 1869 or 1871 and 1874

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