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 ...
er who played during the late 18th century. He is considered to have been "one of the finest professional cricketers" of his day.
Boxall was a noted bowler and is believed to be the first player to have bowled
leg breaks
Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in cricket. A leg spinner bowls right-arm with a wrist spin action. The leg spinner's normal delivery causes the ball to spin from right to left (from the bowler's perspective) when the ball bounces on the ...
.Rajan A (2011) ''Twirlymen: The Unlikely History of Cricket's Greatest Spin Bowlers'', p. 24. London: Yellow Jersey Press. Bowling
underarm
The axilla (also, armpit, underarm or oxter) is the area on the human body directly under the shoulder joint. It includes the axillary space, an anatomical space within the shoulder girdle between the arm and the thoracic cage, bounded superiorl ...
, he took more than 300 wickets in 89
first-class matches
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 ...
, playing between 1789 and 1803.Thomas Boxall CricketArchive. Retrieved 2022-06-29. As a professional he played for a wide variety of sides, most frequently appearing for England sides and for
Kent county cricket teams
Kent county cricket teams have played matches since the early 18th century. The county's links to cricket go back further with Kent and Sussex generally accepted as the birthplace of the sport. It is widely believed that cricket was first played b ...
, although he played as a
given man
This is a general glossary of the terminology used in the sport of cricket. Where words in a sentence are also defined elsewhere in this article, they appear in italics. Certain aspects of cricket terminology are explained in more detail in cr ...
for both
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
Scores and Biographies
Arthur Haygarth (4 August 1825 – 1 May 1903) was a noted amateur cricketer who became one of cricket's most significant historians. He played first-class cricket for the Marylebone Cricket Club and Sussex between 1844 and 1861, as well as num ...
'', Boxall was around tall, strong and muscular and may have been born at
Ripley, Surrey
Ripley is a village in Surrey, England. The village has existed since Norman times – the chancel of the church of St. Mary Magdalen shows construction of circa 1160 there and supporting feet of fines and ecclesiastical records mention the ...
Wisden 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 ...