Cricket in Sussex refers to the sport of cricket in relation to its participation and history within Sussex, England. One of the most popular sports in Sussex, it is commonly believed that cricket was developed in Sussex and the neighbouring counties of Kent and Surrey. Records from 1611 indicate the first time that the sport was documented in Sussex; this is also the first reference to cricket being played by adults. The first reference to women's cricket is also from Sussex and dates from 1677; a match between two Sussex women's teams playing in London is documented from 1747. Formed in 1839, Sussex County Cricket Club is believed to be the oldest professional sports club in the world and is the oldest of the county cricket clubs. Sussex players, including Jem Broadbridge and William Lillywhite were instrumental in bringing about the change from underarm bowling to roundarm bowling, which later developed into overarm bowling. For some time roundarm bowling was referred to as 'Sussex bowling'.
Sussex's 'golden era' was in the 2000s when the club won 8 competitions including the County Championship three times, winning the County Championship for the first time in 2003. Formed in 1971, the Sussex Cricket League is believed to be the largest adult cricket league in the world, with 335 teams in 2018.
Origins and development
Earliest recorded history A mural at Cocking church (c1350) showing shepherds playing a bat and ball game is sometimes held to show that cricket existed earlier than the 16th and 17th centuries, but no stumps are shown in the mural and although the mural may show a sport it is not recognisably cricket.
The map of pre-1675 references to cricket shows a crescent with its most westerly point at Selsey, rising to Surrey and Kent in the north and on to Ruckinge in Kent, close to the Sussex border in east. Wynne-Thomas suggests that cricket is likely to have begun approximately where the three counties meet, around East Grinstead, and spread out from there.
The first reference to cricket being played as an adult sport was in 1611, when two men in Sidlesham were prosecuted for playing cricket on Sunday instead of going to church. In 1622, several parishioners of Boxgrove, near Chichester in west Sussex, were prosecuted for playing cricket in a churchyard on Sunday, 5 May. There were three reasons for the prosecution: one was that it contravened a local bye-law; another reflected concern about church windows which may or may not have been broken; the third was that a little childe had like to have her braines beaten out with a cricket batt! The latter reason was because the rules at the time allowed the batsman to hit the ball twice and so fielding near the batsman was very hazardous, as two later incidents drastically confirm.
In 1624, a fatality occurred at Horsted Keynes when a fielder called Jasper Vinall was struck on the head by the batsman, Edward Tye, who was trying to hit the ball a second time to avoid being caught. Vinall is thus the earliest recorded cricketing fatality. The matter was recorded in a coroner's court, which returned a verdict of misadventure. The tragedy was repeated in 1647 when another fatality was recorded at Selsey a player called Henry Brand being hit on the head by a batsman trying to hit the ball a second time. When the first Laws of cricket were encoded in 1744, it was illegal to hit the ball twice and a batsman breaking the rule was to be given out. The record of the 1624 case confirms that two villages, Horsted Keynes and West Hoathly, were involved in the match and provides further evidence of the growth of village cricket.
In 1628, an ecclesiastical case related to a game at East Lavant, near Chichester being played on a Sunday. One of the defendants argued that he had not played during evening prayer time but only before and after. It did him no good as he was fined the statutory 12d and ordered to do penance. Doing penance involved confessing his guilt to the whole East Lavant congregation the following Sunday. In 1637, another ecclesiastical case recorded parishioners of Midhurst playing cricket during evening prayer on Sunday, 26 February.
The record of the 1622 case at Boxgrove contains the earliest reference to the cricket bat. The term "batt" in cricket was peculiar to Sussex and Kent, where coastal smugglers were known in Sussex dialect and Kentish dialect as "batmen" because of the cudgels they carried. The earliest known reference to the wicket is contained in lines written in an old bible in 1680 which invited "All you that do delight in Cricket, come to Marden, pitch your wickets". Marden is north of Chichester.
Important cricket matches 1677 onwards In 1677, accounts of Thomas Lennard, 1st Earl of Sussex, include an item which refers to £3 being paid to him when he went to a cricket match being played at "ye Dicker", which was a common near Herstmonceux. In 1694, accounts of Sir John Pelham record 2s 6d paid for a wager concerning a cricket match at Lewes. Cricket was played by women as early as 1677 when it was recorded that Anne Lennard, Countess of Sussex, the wife of the Earl of Sussex was growing tired of the amusement, as played in Dicker near Herstmonceux.
The earliest known newspaper report of a major cricket match was in the Foreign Post dated Wednesday, 7 July 1697:
"The middle of last week a great match at cricket was played in Sussex; there were eleven of a side, and they played for fifty guineas apiece".
The stakes on offer confirm the importance of the fixture and the fact that it was eleven a side suggests that two strong and well-balanced teams were assembled.
There is a newspaper report of a "great match" played in Sussex in 1697 which was 11-a-side and played for high stakes of 50 guineas a side. The match in 1697 was probably Sussex versus another county.
18th century The most notable of the early patrons were a group of aristocrats and businessmen who were active from about 1725, which is the time that press coverage became more regular, perhaps as a result of the patrons' influence. These men included the 2nd Duke of Richmond and Sir William Gage. Slindon was backed by the Duke of Richmond and featured the star player Richard Newland. Village cricket continued to thrive in the 18th century. In 1717, Thomas Marchant, a farmer from Hurstpierpoint in Sussex, first mentioned cricket in his diary. He made numerous references to the game, particularly concerning his local club, until 1727. His son Will played for "our parish", as he often called the Hurstpierpoint team.
The diaries of Marchant and Thomas Turner, another Sussex diarist, from East Hoathly, show that in the 18th century cricket was commonplace in the Sussex Weald. In 1702, the Duke of Richmond's XI defeated an Arundel XI in Sussex. The source for this game is a receipt sent by one Saul Bradley to the Duke on 14 December 1702. The receipt was in respect of one shilling and six pence paid by the Duke "for brandy when your Grace plaid at Cricket with Arundel men". It is thought the brandy was bought to celebrate a victory.
After the 1st Duke of Richmond died in 1723, his son Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, quickly succeeded him as cricket's main benefactor and became a famous patron of Sussex cricket for the next thirty years. The 2nd Duke enjoyed a friendly rivalry with his friend Sir William Gage, another Sussex patron. Their teams played each other many times and their earliest known contest was on Tuesday, 20 July 1725, five days after Sir William's team was beaten by unknown opponents. Our knowledge of these two games is based on a humorous letter sent by Sir William to the Duke on 16 July. Sir William bemoaned that he was "shamefully beaten" the previous day in "his first match of the year" but says nothing of his opponents. He then looked forward to playing the Duke's team next Tuesday and wished his Grace "success in everything except his cricket match". The main rival to Richmond and Gage was Edwin Stead of Maidstone, who was the first of the noted Kent patrons. The Sussex teams of Richmond and Gage enjoyed an inter-county rivalry with Stead's Kent that could have originated the concept of the County Championship. Other good players known to have been active in the 1720s were Edwin Stead of Kent; Edmund Chapman and Stephen Dingate of Surrey; Tim Coleman of London; and Thomas Waymark of Sussex.
In 1727 the first formal rules of cricket, the articles of agreement, were drawn up between the 2nd Duke of Richmond and Mr Alan Brodrick for two matches between a team from Sussex and another from Surrey. Gage's Sussex team in the 1729 season achieved the sport's earliest known innings victory against Kent. Given that Kent had effectively claimed the title of champion county in 1728, the first known instance of such a claim, Sussex could justifiably claim to have won the title in 1729. Sarah Lennox, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox sponsored three cricket matches for her husband Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond in 1731 and arranged matches for Slindon in 1741.
Early women's matches were not necessarily genteel affairs. A match, on 13 July 1747, held at the prestigious Artillery Ground in Middlesex (now London) between a team from the villages of Singleton and Charlton (described as the women from the 'Hills of Sussex') and another from West Dean and Chilgrove (described as the women from the 'Dales of Sussex') spilled over into the following day after it was interrupted by crowd trouble. The women playing would have shown particular talent to have played at such as prestigious ground and would have been attended by the Duchess of Richmond. The fixture attracted large sums of gambling money, with sums of over £1,000 at stake for the winners. Contemporary records show that women's matches were played on many occasions between villages in Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey. In 1768 the women of Harting played the women of Rogate three times in a series that attracted crowds of up to 3,000, a number unheard of at the time. In the 1780s and 1790s the Bury Common women's team were so successful when playing in some of the first six-a-side matches that they challenged any eleven in the country to a match, including the men's All England XI to a match, with no response from the men's team.
From 1741, Richmond patronised the famous Slindon Cricket Club, whose team was representative of the county and at one stage was proclaimed to be the best team in England. Slindon's best player was the great Richard Newland, supported by his brothers Adam and John; and by the controversial Edward Aburrow Sr, a good cricketer but a known smuggler. After the death of Richmond in 1751, Sussex cricket declined until the emergence of the Brighton club at its Prince of Wales Ground in 1790. Despite some periods of decline, Sussex continued to be a major cricket county throughout the 18th century. It has been suggested by historians that the Hambledon Club represented Sussex as well as Hampshire for inter-county purposes. Several noted Sussex cricketers, including Richard Nyren, Noah Mann and William Barber, played for Hambledon.
Development of roundarm bowling