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 ...

must have reached

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

by the end of the 17th century. The earliest reference to cricket in the county is dated 1732 and is also the earliest reference to

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

as a county team. On Thursday, 6 July 1732, a team called Essex & Hertfordshire played

London Cricket Club The original London Cricket Club was formed in 1722 and was one of the foremost clubs in English cricket over the next four decades, holding important match status. It is closely associated with the Artillery Ground, where it played most of it ...

in a

first-class match First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

Epping Forest Epping Forest is a area of ancient woodland, and other established habitats, which straddles the border between Greater London and Essex. The main body of the forest stretches from Epping in the north, to Chingford on the edge of the London ...

"for £50 a side". The result is unknown.Buckley, ''Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket'', p. 7.ACS, ''Important Matches'', p. 20. Hertfordshire has not usually been considered a first-class county but its teams did appear frequently throughout the eighteenth century and played in some matches classified as first-class. There was a county organisation of sorts in 1838 and the present

Hertfordshire County Cricket Club Hertfordshire County Cricket Club is one of twenty minor county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Hertfordshire. The team is currently a member of the Minor Counties Champio ...

was founded on 8 March 1876. It joined the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

for the very first season, 1895, and is the only one of the seven competing sides from that season to have maintained membership continuously ever since.Barclays, p. 490.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * Cricket in Hertfordshire English cricket teams in the 18th century English cricket in the 19th century Former senior cricket clubs History of Hertfordshire {{England-cricket-team-stub