Page:Cricket, by WG Grace.djvu/27

 until the year after; and until 1791 a club match-book was not kept.

The year 1791 saw the dissolution of the Hambledon Club and the dispersion of its members over the counties of Surrey, Hampshire, Kent, and Middlesex.

Lord (height, 5 ft. 9 ins.; weight, 11 st. 12 lbs.) played his first match at Lord's in the same year for the M.C.C. v. Kent. He was in his eighteenth year, but gave no promise in that match of the skill which attracted the cricketing public a few years later, and which stamped him as the best amateur batsman of his day. He was a fair bowler, and kept up his form for nearly a quarter of a century.

Surrey, Kent, and M.C.C. were now the crack clubs in England, and before the end of the eighteenth century they were in turn strong enough to play an eleven of All England. County matches were of frequent occurrence: Surrey played Kent, Hampshire, and Middlesex; Kent and Middlesex played Essex; and Nottingham played Leicester.

The first twenty years of the nineteenth century introduced seven names which will live in the memories of cricketers as long as the game is played. To belong to the M.C.C. even in those days was the aim of most players; to be considered good enough to play for or against it, was to stamp the player as belonging to the first flight. W. Lambert made his first appearance at Lord's in 1801, playing for Surrey v. England; E. H. Budd in 1802, playing for Middlesex v. Surrey; George Osbaldeston in 1808, playing for M.C.C. v. Middlesex; W. Ward in 1810, playing for England v. Surrey; Jas. Broadbridge in 1817, playing for Sussex v. Epsom; George Brown in 1818, playing in a single-wicket match; and Fuller Pilch in 1820, when only seventeen years of age, playing for Norfolk v. M.C.C.