1793 English cricket season

In the 1793 English cricket season, Surrey defeated England three times. Details of 20 matches are known, but few were important.^{[note 1]}

The secondary sources are sometimes confusing on the subject of the Oldfield Cricket Club at Bray, near Maidenhead in Berkshire. The team featured in several major matches during the late 18th century and was an important team at this time as it had a high playing standard and numerous recognised players. The team is sometimes referred to as the Oldfield Club or as Maidenhead, but the Oldfield Club presented itself as representative of Berkshire in the same way as Hornchurch/Essex and Brighton/Sussex, so its team might be styled Berkshire.

Matches

Date	Match Title	Venue	Source
13–14 May (M-Tu)	Old Etonians v Old Westminster	Lord's (Dorset Square) ^[5]	Eton won by 34 runs

22 & 23 May (W-Th)	MCC v Middlesex	Lord's (Dorset Square) ^[5]	MCC won by 54 runs

30–31 May (Th-F)	Essex v MCC	Langton Park, Hornchurch ^[6]	MCC won by innings & 10 runs

6–7 June (Th-F)	MCC v Essex	Lord's (Dorset Square) ^[7]	Essex won by 2 wkts

12–14 June (W-F)	England v Surrey & Sussex	Lord's (Dorset Square) ^[8]	S&S won by innings & 29 runs
In the ACS Guide, this match is shown as taking place in 1793 after references in WDC and Britcher; but S&B and Bentley both have it played in 1792 as quoted in MCC records. It is a case of one source’s word against another’s but the clincher seems to be a report of the game in The Sportsman magazine which did not start publication until Oct 1792.
17–18 June (M-Tu)	MCC v Essex	Lord's (Dorset Square) ^[9]	Essex won by 3 wkts

20–21 June (Th-F)	MCC v Kent	Lord's (Dorset Square) ^[9]	MCC won by 10 wkts

24–26 June (M-W)	MCC v Berkshire	Lord's (Dorset Square) ^[10]	Berkshire won by 119 runs
S&B calls this game MCC v The Oldfield Club but Oldfield was representative of Berkshire in the same way as Hornchurch/Essex and Brighton/Sussex. ACS Guide says the game should be called MCC v Maidenhead yet in several other fixtures they use Oldfield. The Oldfield club played at Oldfield Bray, near Maidenhead. Berkshire had a high standard in the late C18.
27 June (Th)	(West) Kent v Essex	Gravesend ^[11]	West Kent won by 128 runs
The so-called Kent v Essex game reported in SB153 was a minor fixture. Kent was probably a local club or, as Haygarth himself calls it, a "scratch" team.
27–28 June (Th-F)	Kent v MCC	Dartford Brent ^[12]	Kent won by 8 wkts

28–29 June (F-S)	Kent v MCC	Dartford Brent ^[12]	MCC won by 73 runs
The game was quickly arranged when the previous one finished and started on 28 June.
1–3 July (M-W)	Earl of Winchilsea v G Louch	Lord's (Dorset Square) ^[13]	Winchilsea's XI won by 3 runs

12-13, won by 15 July (F-M)	England v Surrey ^	Windmill Down ^[14]	Surrey won by 15 runs

15 July (M)	Assheton Smith v Earl of Winchilsea	Perriam Down ^[15]	Winchilsea's XI won by 3 wkts
The Assheton Smith v Earl of Winchilsea game in Wiltshire on 15 July is in both SB155 and the ACS list. Apart from Earl of Winchilsea and Assheton Smith themselves, hardly anyone involved was a recognised player and the game is decidedly a minor fixture.
22–24 July (M-W)	England v Surrey ^	Dartford Brent ^[16]	Surrey won by 53 runs
^ S&B and ACS both say the first game was England v Surrey though it was played in Hampshire; five of the England players were Hampshire men. S&B says the second game was Surrey v Hampshire with given men on each side: i.e., Hammond for Surrey; Boxall, Fennex and Ring for Hampshire (and also Newman of Essex). But ACS differs and calls S&B's Hampshire "England". This highlights the difficulty of team names. Five Hampshire players at home played for England while seven Hampshire players away were for Hampshire, according to S&B. S&B also said the second game was at Lord's, but ACS have discovered it was on Dartford Brent.
25–26 July (Th-F)	Berkshire v MCC	Oldfield Bray ^[16]	Berkshire won by 85 runs

5-7 Aug (M-W)	England v Surrey	Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland ^[17]	England won by 7 wkts

7-10 Aug (W-S)	R Leigh v Earl of Winchilsea	Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland ^[18]	Winchilsea's XI won by 5 wkts

19-20 Aug (M-Tu)	Newman v R Leigh	Navestock, Essex ^[18]	Newman's XI won by 37 runs
Navestock is near Brentwood. It was the home ground of the original Essex Cricket Club but this was nothing to do with the later Essex CCC.
29-31 Aug (Th-S)	Sussex v Kent	Brighton ^[19]	Kent won
Mr Waghorn found only bare details of this game and has recorded "a grand match of cricket between 9 of Kent with Ring and Beldham, against 9 of Essex (sic) with Scott (i.e., of Hambledon) and another, for 500 guineas, played at Brighton, which ended in favour of Kent". It is curious that Kent and Essex should play at Brighton and it is assumed that the source wrote Essex instead of Sussex.

Other events

To be completed.

Notes

^ Some eleven-a-side matches played from 1772 to 1863 have been rated "first-class" by certain sources.^[1] However, the term only came into common use around 1864, when overarm bowling was legalised. It was formally defined as a standard by a meeting at Lord's, in May 1894, of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and the county clubs which were then competing in the County Championship. The ruling was effective from the beginning of the 1895 season, but pre-1895 matches of the same standard have no official definition of status because the ruling is not retrospective.^[2] Matches of a similar standard since the beginning of the 1864 season are generally considered to have an unofficial first-class status.^[3] Pre-1864 matches which are included in the ACS' "Important Match Guide" may generally be regarded as important or, at least, historically significant.^[4] For further information, see First-class cricket.

References

^ "First-Class matches in England in 1772". CricketArchive. Retrieved 29 November 2025.
^ Wisden (1948). Preston, Hubert (ed.). Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (85th ed.). London: Sporting Handbooks Ltd. p. 813. OCLC 851705816.
^ ACS 1982, pp. 4–5.
^ ACS 1981, pp. 1–40.
^ ^a ^b Haygarth 1996, p. 146.
^ Haygarth 1996, p. 147.
^ Haygarth 1996, p. 148.
^ Haygarth 1996, p. 132.
^ ^a ^b Haygarth 1996, p. 149.
^ Haygarth 1996, p. 150.
^ Haygarth 1996, p. 153.
^ ^a ^b Haygarth 1996, p. 151.
^ Haygarth 1996, p. 152.
^ Haygarth 1996, p. 154.
^ Haygarth 1996, p. 155.
^ ^a ^b Haygarth 1996, p. 157.
^ Haygarth 1996, p. 158.
^ ^a ^b Haygarth 1996, p. 159.
^ Waghorn 2005.

Bibliography

ACS (1981). A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709–1863. Nottingham: ACS. OCLC 85045528.
ACS (1982). A Guide to First-class Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles. Nottingham: ACS. OCLC 10586869.
Haygarth, Arthur (1996) [1862]. Scores & Biographies, Volume 1 (1744–1826). Kennington: Frederick Lillywhite. ISBN 978-19-00592-23-9.
Waghorn, H. T. (2005) [1906]. The Dawn of Cricket. London: J. W. McKenzie. ISBN 978-09-47821-17-3.
Warner, Pelham (1946). Lords: 1787–1945. London: Harrap. OCLC 877106024.

Matches

Other events

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading