1870 was the 84th season of

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

in England since the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). It was in many ways a bridge between two eras of the game and, in a summer comparable for hot and dry weather to

1887 Events January–March * January 11 – Louis Pasteur's anti-rabies treatment is defended in the Académie Nationale de Médecine, by Dr. Joseph Grancher. * January 20 ** The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Har ...

1911 A notable ongoing event was the Comparison of the Amundsen and Scott Expeditions, race for the South Pole. Events January * January 1 – A decade after federation, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory ...

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

, saw W.G. Grace for the second of three successive years establish a record run aggregate, late-blooming slow bowler James Southerton become the first bowler to take 200 first-class wickets in a season and the first use of the

heavy roller The roller is an agricultural tool used for flattening land or breaking up large clumps of soil, especially after ploughing or disc harrowing. Typically, rollers are pulled by tractors or, prior to mechanisation, a team of animals such as horses ...

at Lord's The game of cricket has inspired much poetry, most of which romanticises the sport and its culture. Poems Cricket: An Heroic Poem :Hail, cricket, Glorious, manly, British Game! ::First of all Sports! be first alike in Fame. The poem by James Lo ...

. Although the heavy roller had been patented several decades earlier, its use was never seriously considered by MCC management despite many protests over the danger posed by the Lord's pitch where extremely frequent “shooters” alternated with balls that “flew”Death on a Summer’s Day
/ref> over the batsman's head. These dangerous pitches were viewed as a symbol of virility by many amateur batsmen, however; though when remembering one of W.G.’s finest innings – 66 on one of the roughest Lord’s pitches against a very strong Yorkshire attack against Yorkshire – fast bowlers Freeman and

Emmett Emmett may refer to: Places ;In the United States * Emmett, Idaho * Emmett, Kansas * Emmett, Michigan, a village in St. Clair County * Emmett Charter Township, Michigan in Calhoun County * Emmett Township, St. Clair County, Michigan * Emmett, Misso ...

wondered how the champion was not maimed or killed outright. An unfortunate accident to George Summers which led to his death from head injuries four days after being hit by a sharply rising ball from John Platts that had struck a loose pebble showed that in its first year the heavy roller had not radically altered the Lord’s pitch; though it was to do so from the following season A number of thrilling finishes occurred, most famously the University Match where a hat-trick by Frank Cobden gave Cambridge the match when Oxford looked certain to win.

Playing record (by county)

Leading batsmen (qualification 15 innings)

Leading bowlers (qualification 800 balls)

Events

* 2–4 June: Gloucestershire County Cricket Club played its initial first-class match v. Surrey at Durdham Downs, near Bristol. * 15 June: George Summers, during the MCC v Nottinghamshire match at Lord's, is hit on the temple and dies four days later. It is generally thought that Summers should have been taken to hospital rather than ride a bumpy train to Nottingham. * 27, 28 June: "Cobden's Match".

William Yardley William Yardley (1632 – 6 May 1693) was an early settler of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and is the namesake of the borough of Yardley, Pennsylvania. As a persecuted Quaker minister, Yardley and his wife, Jane ( nee Heath) moved from Ranscloug ...

scores the first century in the University Match, which Cambridge won by two runs after a hat-trick by Cobden when Oxford needed only three runs * 29 August: James Southerton becomes the first bowler to take 200 wickets in an English season when he takes his first wicket in Surrey's last match against YorkshireSurrey v Yorkshire in 1870
/ref> * 4 November: Formation of

Derbyshire County Cricket Club Derbyshire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Derbyshire. Its limited overs team is called the Derbyshire Falcons ...

at a meeting in the Guildhall, Derby.

Notes

Cambridgeshire, though still regarded in 1870 as first-class, played no inter-county matches

References

Annual reviews

* ''John Lillywhite’s Cricketer’s Companion'' (Green Lilly), Lillywhite, 1871 * Arthur Haygarth, ''Scores & Biographies, Volume 11 (1869-1870)'', Lillywhite, 1871 * ''

John Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'', 1871 {{English cricket seasons 1870 in English cricket English cricket seasons in the 19th century