CRICKET IN KENT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 100, 30 April 1930, Page 4

CRICKET IN KENT

FIRST RECORDED MATCH

A PFJXCE'S -WAGER.

A record of every cricket match known to have been played by the County of Kent from the earliest times has just been, published by the Kent Cricket Clubj writes the "Daily Mail." Tho first match recorded in the book was played in London an the summer of 1719 aiid gave rise to a lawsuit. 'After a long Hearing, and near £200 expended in the Cause, my Lord (Chief Justice Pratt), not understanding the" Game, ordered them to play it over again. .. . The Kentish Men had four men to play, and to get 30 to come up with the Londoners. . . The Kentish Men were bowled out. after they had got 9, and lost the match. }Tis reckoned the Jaw suit will amount to £200. .The match was played for a guinea a man each side." This game was played in Lamb's Conduit fields and replayed in Whit Conduit Fields, London, and the account is "quoted from the "Weekly Journal" of May and July, 1719. Another match "was made between Mr. Stead and.Sir William Gage for 100 guineas." It was -Kent versus Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire, and was won by the latter. "Sussex got (within three) in one hand, as the former did in two hands, so the Kentish Men threw it up. A groom of the Duke of Richmond signalised himself by such extraordinary agility and dexterity, to tho surprise of all spectators, which were some thousands, and 'tis.reckoned he turned the scale of victory which for somo years past has generally been on the Kentish side." ■Royalty was taking a keen and active; interest in. cricket in 1735. ■■ A match is recorded to have been played on Bromley Common in July, 1735/ between Kent and London and Middlesex, which Kent won by ten wick.cts. "The match was played for £1000 . . . between the Prince (of Wales) and the' Earl (of Kent), and completed in ono day. There was a great deal of mischief done by some falling from their horses, others being rode over, etc., and one man was carried off for dead as His Royal Highness passed by, just at the entrance to the common." Again in a match .played at Carshal"ton, Surrey, on 19th July, 1762, there was an abrupt ending owing to a- dispute:— "About one of tho players being catched out when Surrey was 50 ahead the first innings; from words they came to blows, which occasioned several broken heads, as likewise a challenge between two persons of distinction; the confusion was so very great that the betts were all withdrawn."