1864 English cricket season

1864 was the 78th season of cricket in England (since the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC)). It was a significant year in cricket history, as it saw the legalisation of overarm bowling and the first edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.^{[note 1]}

Inter-county cricket

The first-class county teams in 1864 were: Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Kent, Middlesex, Notts, Surrey, Sussex and Yorkshire. The unofficial concept of a "champion county" took a new turn when periodicals began publishing tables of inter-county results, although there was still no formal or agreed method of deciding positions in the table. Haygarth usually refers to 'generally agreed' when announcing the Champion County.^[5]

Table^[6]
	Team	P	W	L	D	Pts^[7]
1	Surrey	8	6	0	2	6
2	Cambridgeshire	3	3	0	0	3
	Sussex	8	5	2	1	3
4	Middlesex	4	3	1	0	2
5	Nottinghamshire	7	3	4	0	-1
6	Yorkshire	7	2	4	1	-2
7	Hampshire	4	0	4	0	-4
8	Kent	7	0	7	0	-7

Events

Law 10 was rewritten by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) to allow a bowler to bring his arm through at any height providing he kept it straight and did not throw the ball. The issue of overarm bowling had crystallised in the Willsher-Lillywhite incident of August 1862.
12 January – formation of Lancashire County Cricket Club at a meeting in Manchester.
27–29 January – Otago v. Canterbury at Dunedin was the start of first-class cricket in New Zealand.
Madras v. Calcutta was the start of first-class cricket in India.
First issue of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. It was titled John Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack until the 1937 edition.
6–7 June – Middlesex County Cricket Club played its initial first-class match v. Sussex at Islington
9 June – Playing for MCC against Oxford University, H.E. Bull becomes only the second player,^[8] and the first since 1827,^[9] to be dismissed hit the ball twice in a first-class game.^[10]
7–8 July – Hampshire County Cricket Club played its initial first-class match v. Sussex at the Antelope Ground, Southampton
11–12 July – First appearance of WG Grace in a "big" match, though his first-class debut would not occur until the following season.^[11]
MCC finally purchased the freehold of Lord's Cricket Ground for £18,333 6s 8d with money advanced by William Nicholson.

Leading batsmen (qualification 10 innings)

1864 English season leading batsmen^[12]
Name	Team	Matches	Inns	Not outs	Runs	Hig score	100s	Av
George Anderson	Yorkshire	6	11	5	255	99*	0	42.50
Heathfield Stephenson	Surrey & All England Eleven	15	25	4	824	119	2	39.23
Will Mortlock	Surrey County Cricket Club	18	25	0	855	105	1	34.20
Tom Hayward Sr.	Cambridgeshire	8	12	0	355	66	0	29.58
Bob Carpenter	Cambridgeshire	8	11	1	270	52	0	27.00

Leading bowlers (qualification 800 balls)

1864 English season leading bowlers^[13]
Name	Team	Balls	Runs	Wickets	Best	5w inns	10w match	Av
George Tarrant	Cambridgeshire	1610	590	67	7/30	8	4	8.80
James Grundy	Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) & Nottinghamshire	3466	1109	99	9/19	10	2	11.31
William Fuller-Maitland	Oxford University	1117	521	48	8/48	4	2	11.84
Edward Walker	Middlesex & Southgate	1054	519	42	9/63	4	2	12.35
Edgar Willsher	Kent & All England Eleven	3486	1065	79	7/47	6	0	13.48

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 top-class 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.
^ First Class Cricket Matches 1864 - ACS - Nottingham
^ Table of inter-county results according to Rowland Bowen: see ESPNcricinfo
^ "wins minus losses", as used during the first few official County Championship seasons
^ Wynne-Thomas, Peter; The Rigby A-Z of Cricket Records; p. 93 ISBN 072701868X
^ Nottingham v Sheffield in 1827
^ Marylebone Cricket Club v Oxford University in 1864
^ Scorecard of Surrey Club and Ground v South Wales Cricket Club.
^ First Class Batting in England in 1864
^ First Class Bowling in England in 1864

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.
Warner, Pelham (1946). Lords: 1787–1945. London: Harrap. OCLC 877106024.

Annual reviews

Fred Lillywhite, The Guide to Cricketers, Lillywhite, 1865
John Lillywhite's Cricketer's Companion (Green Lilly), Lillywhite, 1865
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1865