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1888 English cricket season

1888 was the 102nd season of cricket in England since the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). There was a complete contrast to the previous sunlit summer with its record-breaking run-getting: this time the summer was exceptionally cool[1] and wet,[2] resulting in the dominance of bowlers with many records for wicket-taking set.

1888 English cricket season
← 1887
1889 →

Australia toured England to compete for the Ashes. It was the 12th test series between the two sides.[3]

After a run of disastrous results over a number of seasons, Derbyshire was demoted from first-class status and first-class county cricket was now played by only eight teams: Gloucestershire, Kent, Lancashire, Middlesex, Notts, Surrey, Sussex and Yorkshire. Derbyshire recovered first-class status in 1894 and rejoined the Championship in 1895.

Honours

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Playing record (by county)

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County Played Won Lost Drawn Points[b]
Gloucestershire 14 5 5 4 7.0
Kent 14 7 5 2 8.0
Lancashire 14 4 5 5 6.5
Middlesex 12 4 7 1 4.5
Nottinghamshire 14 3 6 5 5.5
Surrey 14 12 1 1 12.5
Sussex 12 1 9 2 2.0
Yorkshire 14 6 4 4 8.0

[4]

Leading batsmen (qualification 20 innings)

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1888 English season leading batsmen[5]
Name Team Matches Innings Not outs Runs Highest score Average 100s 50s
Walter Read Surrey
England		 28 41 2 1414 338 36.25 4 3
WG Grace Gloucestershire
England		 33 59 1 1886 215 32.51 4 7
Bobby Abel Surrey
England		 29 44 2 1323 160 31.50 1 8
Joseph Eccles Lancashire 16 28 2 660 184 25.38 1 2
Maurice Read Surrey 23 32 1 786 109 25.35 1 4

Leading bowlers (qualification 1,000 balls)

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1888 English season leading bowlers[6]
Name Team Balls bowled Runs conceded Wickets taken Average Best bowling 5 wickets
in innings 		10 wickets
in match
Johnny Briggs Lancashire
England		 5802 1679 160 10.49 9/88 16 4
Alec Hearne Kent 2750 786 73 10.76 8/30 5 1
Frederick Martin Kent 3014 791 73 10.83 6/27 4 1
George Lohmann Surrey
England		 6596 2280 209 10.90 8/13 25 9
Jim Phillips MCC 1199 393 35 11.22 6/89 5 1

Ashes tour

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Main article: Australian cricket team in England in 1888

The sixth Australia team, under the captaincy of Percy McDonnell, toured England in 1888. The great team of 1882 under Billy Murdoch had largely disintegrated, and under McDonnell, the team was largely dependent on the sensational bowling of Turner and Ferris.[7] Their overall record of nineteen victories and fourteen defeats was a minor improvement on the 1886 team, but the absence of Giffen weakened the batting in an exceptionally wet summer, whilst the support bowlers to Turner and Ferris, including the veteran Harry Boyle, were used so little that they could never get into form. When the weather improved after a dreadful mid-summer, the batting was much too poor to compete with England[7] and the team's results deteriorated with thrashings in the last two Test matches and poor results against the counties.

Thanks mainly to the bowling of Bobby Peel, well supported by Lohmann, Briggs and Barnes, England defeated Australia two tests to one to retain the Ashes.

Cumulative record - Test wins 1876-1888
England 16
Australia 10
Drawn 4

Notable events

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  • Following the demotion of Derbyshire, the remaining eight counties arrange a nearly-complete program of home-and-away matches (except for Middlesex not playing Sussex) which paves the way for the first County Championship in 1890.
  • 5 July – Formation of Glamorgan County Cricket Club took place at a meeting in the Angel Hotel, Cardiff.
  • 11 August – Surrey beats Sussex by an innings and 485 runs,[8] which remains the most one-sided match in county cricket history. Surrey's score of 698 broke their own 1883 record of 650 as the highest innings total in county cricket.[9]
  • 23 August – Charles Turner takes his 215th wicket, beating Ted Peate's 1882 record for most wickets in a season. Turner would finish with 283, a total beaten only by Tich Freeman in 1928 and 1933 and Tom Richardson in 1895.
  • Surrey's feat of winning twelve of its fourteen games is a winning percentage that has not been equalled since in county cricket, with the best since being fourteen wins in seventeen matches by Warwickshire in 1995.[10]
  • John Wisden’s Cricketers' Almanack publishes its first “Cricketers of the Year” for this season.

Notes

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a An unofficial seasonal title sometimes proclaimed by consensus of media and historians prior to December 1889 when the official County Championship was constituted. Although there are ante-dated claims prior to 1873, when residence qualifications were introduced, it is only since that ruling that any quasi-official status can be ascribed.
b Between 1887 and 1889 an unofficial point system of 1 point for a win and 0.5 points for a draw, devised by the "Cricket Reporting Agency", was used to determine the unofficial "Champion County"

References

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  1. ^ Hadley Center Central England Temperature
  2. ^ Hadley Center England and Wales Precipitation
  3. ^ Wynne-Thomas, Peter (1983). The Hamlyn A-Z of Cricket Records. Hamlyn Publishing Group. ISBN 0-600-34667-6.
  4. ^ Wynne-Thomas, Peter; The Rigby A-Z of Cricket Records; p. 54 ISBN 072701868X
  5. ^ First Class Batting in England in 1888
  6. ^ First Class Bowling in England in 1888
  7. ^ a b The Australian team in England, 1888
  8. ^ Surrey v Sussex in 1888
  9. ^ Webber, Roy; The Playfair Book of Cricket Records; p. 18. Published 1951 by Playfair Books.
  10. ^ Engel, Matthew (editor); Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 133rd Edition (1996), pp. 396–397

Annual reviews

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