The Bs was an occasional team that played

first-class cricket 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 officia ...

in the first half of the 19th century in matches against

All-England The All England Open Badminton Championships is the world's oldest badminton tournament, held annually in England. With the introduction of the Badminton World Federation, BWF's latest grading system, it was given BWF Super Series, Super Series st ...

and

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 team ostensibly consisted of players whose surname began with the letter B given that there were numerous top-class players at that time who qualified: e.g., William Beldham,

Lord Frederick Beauclerk The Reverend Lord Frederick de Vere Beauclerk (8 May 1773 – 22 April 1850), a 19th-century Anglican priest, was an outstanding but controversial English first-class cricketer, the leading "amateur" player of the Napoleonic period. Lord Frede ...

and

Jem Broadbridge James "Jem" Broadbridge (1795–1843) was an English professional cricketer who is widely considered the outstanding all-rounder in England during the 1820s. He played mainly for Sussex teams and made 102 known appearances in first-class cri ...

. However, there were instances of the team including

given men A given is a statement or a condition assumed to be true or known, often to explain or give an example of something; for related topics, see: * Presumption (in law) * Axiom (in formal logic) * Givenness (in discourse) * Conditional probability, u ...

. The Bs is first recorded in the 1805 season and the team was raised sporadically until the 1832 season. The Bs achieved unwanted fame in June 1810 when they played All-England at

Lord's Old Ground Lord's Old Ground was a cricket venue in London that was established by Thomas Lord in 1787. It was used mainly by Marylebone Cricket Club for major matches until 1810, after which a dispute about rent caused Lord to relocate. Matches The first ...

and were dismissed for only 6 in their second innings, enabling All-England to win the match by 6 wickets. This is the world record for the lowest innings total in first-class cricket. Curiously, four of the six runs were scored by John Wells and another one was scored by

James Lawrell James Lawrell (1780 at Frimley, Surrey – 1842 in England) was an English amateur cricketer who made 21 known appearances in first-class cricket matches from 1800 to 1810. Background and Eastwick Park He was the son of James Lawrell (or La ...

, these being the two given men as only nine Bs could take part. The only B to score a run was

Samuel Bridger Samuel Bridger (born 11 May 1777) was an English professional cricketer. He was mainly associated with Surrey and he made 21 known appearances in first-class matches from 1804 to 1825.Arthur Haygarth Arthur Haygarth (4 August 1825 – 1 M ...

. Despite the 1810 setback, the Bs had a reasonable record and defeated All-England in 1805, 1822, 1823 and 1824.

References

Organizations established in 1805 Sports clubs established in the 1800s English cricket in the 19th century Former senior cricket clubs 1805 establishments in England {{england-cricket-team-stub