1887 was the 101st 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 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). Surrey was the leading county for the first time in over twenty years,Wynne-Thomas, Peter; ''The Rigby A-Z of Cricket Records''; p. 54 a status they would retain until 1892.

Champion County

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

Playing record (by county)

Leading batsmen (qualification 20 innings)

Leading bowlers (qualification 1,000 balls)

Notable events

The driest English cricket season since 1870, combined with improvements to pitches from 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 ...

, allowed for a large number of notable batting feats: # Five batsmen with twenty or more innings averaged over 40. Before 1887, no more than two had ever done so in one season.Wynne-Thomas; ''The Rigby A-Z of Cricket Records''; pp. 17–20 # W.G. Grace for the third time reached 2,000 runs; an aggregate not reached by any other batsman until

1893 Events January–March * January 2 – Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America. * Mark Twain started writing Puddn'head Wilson. * January 6 – Th ...

. # Arthur Shrewsbury averaged 78.71 for twenty-three innings, beating W.G. Grace's 1871 record of 78.25. This was not beaten until

Robert Poore Robert Montagu Poore (20 March 1866 – 14 July 1938) was a cricketer and British army officer who, whilst serving in South Africa in 1896, played in three Test matches for the South African cricket team. Much of his cricket was played when he ...

averaged 91.23 in

1899 Events January 1899 * January 1 ** Spanish rule ends in Cuba, concluding 400 years of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. ** Queens and Staten Island become administratively part of New York City. * January 2 – **Bolivia sets up a c ...

. # Shrewsbury's innings of 267 against Middlesex, at 615 minutes, remains the longest innings ever played in a county match. # Walter Read became the first batsman to play two consecutive innings of over 200, scoring 247 against Lancashire and 244 against Cambridge University * For the last time until

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...

,Preston, Norman (editor); ''

Wisden ''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 ...

'', 108th Edition (1971); p. 278 ''no'' bowler took nine wickets in an innings, with the best analysis being eight for 26 by

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 ...

. * As a result of some extremely bad results (only three wins and twenty-nine losses from thirty-five games) and financial trouble, Derbyshire were demoted from first-class status at the end of the season, not to return until 1895. * An unofficial points system of one point for a win and half a point for a draw was devised by the "Cricket Reporting Agency" as a replacement for the former method of fewest matches lost to decide the "Champion County". Along with a more rigid schedule, it became the ancestor of the official County Championship from 1890 onwards.

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.
The 1887 season saw an unofficial point system of 1 point for a win and 0.5 points for a draw devised by the "Cricket Reporting Agency"

References

Annual reviews

* ''James Lillywhite’s Cricketers' Annual'' (Red Lilly), Lillywhite, 1888 * ''

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 ...

'' 1888

External links

CricketArchive – season summaries
{{English cricket seasons 1887 in English cricket English cricket seasons in the 19th century