Oxfordshire County Cricket Club is one of twenty minor

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

clubs within the domestic

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 st ...

structure of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. It represents the historic county of

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primaril ...

. The team is currently a member of 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 ...

Western Division and plays in the

MCCA Knockout Trophy The National Counties Cricket Association Knockout Cup was started in 1983 as a knockout one-day competition for the National Counties in English cricket. At first it was known as the ''English Industrial Estates Cup'', before being called the ...

. Oxfordshire played

List A List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

matches occasionally from 1967 until 2004 but is not classified as a List A team ''per se''.

Grounds

The club plays matches at Banbury CC, Great & Little Tew, Challow and Childrey, Radley College & Bicester & North Oxford, Aston Rowant and Thame. There are plans to expand this range of venues. Oxfordshire County Cricket Club is an integrated part of the Oxfordshire Cricket Board.

Honours

* National Counties Championship (5) - 1929, 1974, 1982, 1989, 2021; shared (0) - * NCCA Knockout Trophy (0) -

Earliest cricket

Cricket probably reached Oxfordshire by the end of the 16th century. Although "not cricket", a 1523 reference to stoolball has been found (see Rowland Bowen's history) re a designated field in Oxfordshire. The earliest reference to cricket in the county is at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in 1673. Dr

Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...

stated that he played cricket during his time at the university; he was there in 1729 for one year only. One of the earliest references to cricket in Oxfordshire was in the ''Reading Mercury'' on Monday 4 October 1779: "On Tues. Oct 5 at Henley, the County of Berks v the County of Oxford, for £25 a side". This is the first time we read of an Oxfordshire county team.

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Ber ...

was rated a first-class team at the time but this was a minor match.

Origin of club

There was a county organisation in 1787, according to

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 ...

. Oxfordshire competed in the first two Minor Counties Championship competitions in 1895 and 1896, and an Oxfordshire side also appeared in the competition from 1900 to 1906. The present Oxfordshire CCC was founded on 14 December 1921 and has been a member of the Minor Counties since the 1922 season.

Club history

Oxfordshire has won the Minor Counties Championship five times. It won the title outright in 1929, 1974, 1982, 1989 and 2021. Oxfordshire has never won the

since its inception in 1983 but in recent years has suffered 2 narrow final defeats.

Notable players

:''See List of Oxfordshire CCC List A players and :Oxfordshire cricketers'' The following Oxfordshire cricketers also made an impact on the first-class game: * Daniel Rowe * John Arnold * Jonathan Batty * Buck Divecha *

Andrew Strauss Sir Andrew John Strauss (born 2 March 1977) is an English cricket administrator and former player, formerly the Director of Cricket for the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). He played county cricket for Middlesex, and captained the Englan ...

Robert Cunliffe Robert Cunliffe may refer to: Sports *Robert Cunliffe (cricketer) (born 1973), English cricketer *Bobby Cunliffe (footballer, born 1928) (1928–2000), winger for Manchester City, Chesterfield and Southport *Bobby Cunliffe (footballer, born 1945), ...

* Tim Hancock * Charles Williams, later Lord Williams of Elvel, sometime UK government minister

References

External links

Oxfordshire Cricket Board site

Oxfordshire County Cricket Club website

Minor Counties Cricket Association Official Site