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foot of page A match on the Forest New Ground | Two in one match | The ban |
A match on the Forest New Ground
One of the most controversial matches in cricket's history was played at the Forest New Ground in Nottingham on 23–25 June 1817. It was an "odds" match between a Nottingham XXII and an England XI. The home team was, of course, the old Nottingham Town Club, which dated from 1771 at least, and were a much better team than the odds would suggest. Indeed, the match should have been eleven-a-side. Without the handicap, England might well have won, but who knows? Given the odds, Nottingham won by 30 runs.
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| Pavilion at the Forest ground |
The match scorecard tells us how many each batter scored. But, as so often happened in the compilation of early scorecards, dismissal information was confined to the primary means alone, so the bowler wasn't named unless he bowled the batter out. A total of 62 wickets fell in the game, and sixteen were bowled. As a result, we only know the names of five bowlers. One of them was the great William Lambert, who bowled six men out in the first innings. Three of the others were Tom Howard, Tom Warsop, and Humphrey Hopkin.
The fifth was the vile Frederick Beauclerk.
William Clarke, then aged eighteen, was playing for Nottingham, but we don't know if he bowled against England, only that he didn't bowl anyone out.
Curiously, there wasn't a single lbw among those 62 wickets, but there was a hit the ball twice. That was Nottingham's George Smith, whose 29 in the second innings was the highest score of the match. Nottingham batted first. While we have a batting order, we have no way of knowing if it was the actual order, or just a list of names, especially as there is no fall of wicket data. The order was unchanged for the second innings, and the same applied to England.
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| George Osbaldeston |
In their second innings, Nottingham made 98, largely thanks to the 29 runs scored by Smith until he hit the ball a second time. Did he? Or did Beauclerk say he did? That gave Nottingham a lead of 95, and we may assume England had plenty of time left to reach their target. They were dismissed for 65. Bentley, who was #1 in the order, made 14 before Dennis stumped him. Howard evidently played well, and was 19 not out at the end. Hopkin bowled both Beldham and Beauclerk for low scores. So, the match ended in victory for Nottingham by 30 runs.
Arthur Haygarth's Scores & Biographies is a classic, especially Volume 1 which covers the years up to 1826. Although Haygarth was invariably polite, he did speak his mind, or at least provide strong hints as to what he thought. He covers Nottingham v England on page 401, and wrote:
This match was "said" to have been "sold" on both sides.
Note his use of quotes and italics. You could just say: "Well, Beauclerk was involved". In addition to the usual shenanigans, Beauclerk got a broken finger, which almost caused lockjaw. Haygarth says Beauclerk had annoyed John Sherman, who returned "an angry overthrow". Beauclerk was injured trying to stop the ball.
Two in one match
A week later, there was a five-day match at Lord's between teams labelled Sussex and Epsom. Epsom, of course, is in Surrey, and is famous for the Derby. Ten of the Epsom team came from anywhere but Surrey. The exception was Robert Robinson. His team-mates included Budd, Howard, and William Ward—all greats—and six other good players. Yes, that's ten. In addition, Epsom were handicapped by the useless and appalling Aislabie, who was surely the worst player of all time, as well as being a slave plantation owner. Sussex had nine of their own players, including the Broadbridge brothers, but they were without William Lillywhite. They had two given men, Lambert and Osbaldeston.
An accurate title for the game would be "Sussex with Lambert and Osbaldeston versus Ten of All England".
This match is remembered for the performance of William Lambert, who made scores of 107 not out and 157, the first time anyone is known to have scored two centuries in the same match. Osbaldeston scored 106 in the first innings. The team scores were 292 and 445 by Sussex, 204 and 106 by Epsom, so Sussex won by 427 runs. Lambert was then 38 years old. Unbelievably, that was his last match in top-class cricket.
So, what happened? Did he retire? No, he didn't retire. Beauclerk happened.
The ban
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| William Lambert, c. 1850 |
The MCC committee, better known as the autocratic Beauclerk's yes men, called Lambert to account, and banned him from Lord's for life. That effectively ended Lambert's career in senior cricket, because Lord's at the time was the game's sole major venue.
Arthur Haygarth's comment on Lambert's ban was:
Lambert was not allowed to appear at that ground any more, owing to his having (at least, so it was said) "sold" the England v Nottingham match.
"At least, so it was said" neatly summarises anything that was ever said by Beauclerk. Notice too that Haygarth again placed "sold" in quotes.
Haygarth had to be careful when he wrote his biography of the Reverend (!) Beauclerk only a few years after the hypocrite died. John Major, writing over 150 years later, had no need to be reticent, although he did try to be fair by reminding us that Beauclerk was a good player. Indeed, he was a very good player, but that doesn't negate what Major called a "damning charge sheet"—Beauclerk was seen as "avaricious, ill-tempered, hypocritical, and a gamester adept at sharp practice". Derek Birley said Beauclerk, the Vicar of St Albans if you please, was "completely devoid of Christian charity".
C. L. R. James does not mention Beauclerk by name. He tells us that Thomas Arnold "aimed to create a body of educated men who would resist the crimes of Toryism", and that what Arnold really hated was "the tribe of selfish and ignorant lords, and country squires and clergymen". Well, Beauclerk wasn't a country squire, but the rest is him to a T.
Haygarth discovered that Lambert continued to play local club cricket in Reigate until he was about sixty. Lambert died in April 1851, at the age of 72. Nearly five years earlier, in August 1846, his Nottingham opponent William Clarke had founded the All-England Eleven. In later years, Clarke freely acknowledged that Lambert had been one of his main mentors, especially in the art of underarm spin bowling, at which Clarke himself became a master.
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