1906 season | |||
Captain | CHB Marsham | ||
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Ground(s) |
Canterbury Catford Tonbridge Tunbridge Wells Gravesend Maidstone |
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County Championship | 1st | ||
Most runs | KL Hutchings (1,454) | ||
Most wickets | A Fielder (172) | ||
Most catches | J Seymour (43) | ||
Most wicket-keeping dismissals | FH Huish (56) | ||
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Kent County Cricket Club's 1906 season was the seventeenth season in which the county competed in the County Championship and saw the county win their first Championship title. Kent played 25 first-class cricket matches during the season, losing only four matches overall and only two matches in the 1906 County Championship. They finished equal on points with Yorkshire and Surrey but won the title on the percentage of finished matches won.
Wisden considered that there was a "general consensus" Kent were "the best county side of the year" and that they had "shown the most brilliant form", whilst The Guardian wrote that "a more brilliant side it would be hard to imagine". The title was sealed with a final game victory by an innings against Hampshire, the team's twelfth successive victory. Two of the county's players, Arthur Fielder and Kenneth Hutchings were selected as Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1907 as a result of their performances during the season.
The Championship victory was the first of four by Kent during the Golden Age of cricket in the years leading up to the First World War. It was celebrated by the club by the commissioning of a famous oil painting Kent vs Lancashire at Canterbury which now hangs in the Long Room in the Lord's Pavilion.
Kent started the season with a match against the MCC at Lord's which they lost by 69 runs. The first four County Championship matches of the season saw losses to Yorkshire and Lancashire, a draw with Essex and a sole win away at Sussex. These were the only losses the side would suffer in the Championship during the season and a run of four wins, including a one wicket win against Surrey which is generally considered the turning point of the season, and three draws led up to the visit of the touring West Indian side to Catford in mid July. A victory by an innings and 14 runs was the first of twelve successive wins leading up to the end of the championship season.