1878 was the 92nd 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 str ...

in England since the foundation of the

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

(MCC). The first official tour by an Australian team was undertaken, although it played no Test matches. A match at Old Trafford inspired a famous poem.

Champion County

* UndecidedWynne-Thomas, Peter; ''The Rigby A-Z of Cricket Records''; p. 53

Playing record (by county)

Leading batsmen (qualification 20 innings)

Leading bowlers (qualification 1,000 balls)

Notable events

* Australia made the inaugural first-class tour of England by an overseas team. * 25 – 27 July:

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

''versus'' Gloucestershire at Old Trafford. This was the first time Gloucestershire visited Old Trafford and it caused ground records to be established. The match was drawn after rain interruptions. It has a special place because it ultimately formed the nostalgic inspiration for the famous poem ''At Lord's'' by

Francis Thompson Francis Joseph Thompson (16 December 1859 – 13 November 1907) was an English poet and Catholic mystic. At the behest of his father, a doctor, he entered medical school at the age of 18, but at 26 left home to pursue his talent as a writer a ...

. In the second innings, the famed "run-stealers"

A. N. Hornby Albert Neilson Hornby, nicknamed Monkey Hornby (10 February 1847 – 17 December 1925) was one of the best-known sportsmen in England during the nineteenth century excelling in both rugby and cricket. He was the first of only two men to captain ...

and

Dick Barlow Richard Gorton Barlow (28 May 1851 – 31 July 1919) was a cricketer who played for Lancashire and England. Barlow is best remembered for his batting partnership with A N Hornby, which was immortalised in nostalgic poetry by Francis Thompson. He ...

shared an opening stand of 108, with Hornby going on to score 100. He also became involved in a ferocious argument with WG when a contentious "run-out" was claimed after the batsmen had stopped running because the ball had crossed the boundary. The run-out was finally overruled after WG even went so far as to ask the (Lancashire home) crowd if it had been a four after all. He knew all along that a four had been scored. * 4 July: Allan Steel becomes the first bowler to take 100 wickets in his first full season of first-class cricket. He played one match in 1877. * 31 July: Official formation of Northants County Cricket Club at a meeting in the George Hotel,

Kettering Kettering is a market and industrial town in North Northamptonshire, England. It is located north of London and north-east of Northampton, west of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene. The name means "the place (or territory) of ...

. *

Alfred Shaw Alfred Shaw (29 August 1842 – 16 January 1907) was an eminent Victorian cricketer and rugby footballer, who bowled the first ball in Test cricket and was the first to take five wickets in a Test innings (5/35). He made two trips to North Ameri ...

and

Fred Morley Frederick Morley (16 December 1850 – 28 September 1884) was a professional cricketer who was reckoned to be the fastest bowler in England during his prime. During a 13-year career for Nottinghamshire and England he took 1,274 wickets at an ...

bowl unchanged through five matches during the season. No other pair has ever managed more than three.Frindall, Bill (editor); ''The Wisden Book of Cricket Records'' (Fourth edition); pp. 285–289. * Shaw becomes the second bowler after

James Southerton James Southerton (16 November 1827 – 16 June 1880) was a professional cricketer who played first-class cricket between 1854 and 1879. After a slow start, he became, along with Alfred Shaw, the greatest slow bowler of the 1870s. He played in th ...

in 1870 to top 200 wickets in a season.

Notes

An unofficial seasonal title sometimes proclaimed by consensus of media and historians prior to December 1889 when the official

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

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.
Middlesex, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire were all seen as having some claims to the "Championship", but the general consensus was that none of these teams could claim superiority

References

Annual reviews

* ''John Lillywhite's Cricketer's Companion'' (Green Lilly), Lillywhite, 1879 * ''James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual'' (Red Lilly), Lillywhite, 1879 * ''

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 ...

'' 1879

External links

CricketArchive – season summaries
{{English cricket seasons 1878 in English cricket English cricket seasons in the 19th century