1882-83 New Zealand cricket season - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

During the 1882–83 New Zealand cricket season, the first class cricket consisted of six matches: an Auckland team went on a tour in December including three games, two on the South Island

South Island

The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...

and in Wellington on the southern tip of the North Island

North Island

The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...

, and three further local clashes.

Canterbury won both their matches in this season, but by close margins (27 runs over Auckland and four runs over Otago). Auckland also had a good record, with three wins and a loss after a first-innings lead to Canterbury, while Wellington won the annual clash with Nelson

Nelson cricket team

Nelson cricket team is a cricket team representing the Nelson Region of New Zealand and currently competes in the Hawke Cup.Cricket was first reported as being played in Nelson in the Nelson Examiner in March 1844, in a match between the Surveyors of the Land Company and Nelson...

to end with a 1–1 record.

Matches in Canterbury and Auckland were played with four-ball overs, the remainder with five-ball overs.

Auckland's December tour

2 December–5 December 1882, Lancaster Park, Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

: Canterbury (130 & 180) beat Auckland (162 & 121) by 27 runs. In the first clash between the sides since 1877, Canterbury fought off Auckland quick bowler William Lankham, who took eleven for 99 on first class debut, and a first-innings deficit of 32 to clinch victory on the final day. David Ashby and George Watson made a fourth-wicket stand of 64, the second largest stand of the game after Watson had made 81 for the second wicket with William Reeves in the first innings, and Canterbury closed with a lead of 123 with five wickets in hand. On the third morning, ten wickets fell for 50 runs, five of them Auckland wickets, and they now required 124 to win. However, William Frith completed a ten-wicket-haul to help Canterbury to a 27-run win.
8 December–9 December 1882, Basin Reserve
Basin Reserve
The Basin Reserve , is a cricket ground in Wellington, New Zealand, used for Test, first-class and one-day cricket. Some argue that its proximity to the city, its Historic Place status and its age make it the most famous cricket ground in New Zealand...

, Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

: Wellington (94 & 134) lost to Auckland (174 & 55/1) by nine wickets. Auckland retained their unbeaten record against Wellington, who despite winning the toss trailed by 80 runs on first innings, with Robert Yates' 49 the top score. Lankham continued his good tour with four wickets in the second innings, ending with 18 wickets thus far.
13 December–14 December 1882, Victory Square
Victory Square, Nelson
Victory Square is a cricket ground in Nelson, Nelson Region, New Zealand. The first recorded cricket match held on the ground came in December 1862 when Nelson played Wellington. First-class cricket was first played there in February 1875 when Nelson played Wellington. Nelson played six further...

, Nelson
Nelson, New Zealand
Nelson is a city on the eastern shores of Tasman Bay, and is the economic and cultural centre of the Nelson-Tasman region. Established in 1841, it is the second oldest settled city in New Zealand and the oldest in the South Island....

: Nelson
Nelson cricket team
Nelson cricket team is a cricket team representing the Nelson Region of New Zealand and currently competes in the Hawke Cup.Cricket was first reported as being played in Nelson in the Nelson Examiner in March 1844, in a match between the Surveyors of the Land Company and Nelson...

(33 & 150) lost to Auckland (89 & 98) by four runs. Auckland ended the tour with a 2–1 record after a narrow win at Nelson, with Nelson bowler James Wigzell taking his only career five-wicket-haul after the Nelson captain put Auckland in to bat. Then the hosts were all out for 33, with four ducks
Duck (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a duck refers to a batsman's dismissal for a score of zero.-Origin of the term:The term is a shortening of the term "duck's egg", the latter being used long before Test cricket began...

and no double-digit scores, with Lankham taking six wickets and two men run out
Run out
Run out is a method of dismissal in the sport of cricket. It is governed by Law 38 of the Laws of cricket.-The rules:A batsman is out Run out if at any time while the ball is in play no part of his bat or person is grounded behind the popping crease and his wicket is fairly put down by the opposing...

. Wigzell ended with nine wickets, and Nelson nearly chased down the target of 155; in the final partnership, the nine and eleven batsmen made 22 not out and 30 respectively, before Auckland opening bowler William Buckland struck to seal the win.

February

9 February–12 February 1883, Lancaster Park, Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

: Canterbury (131 & 94) beat Otago (134 & 87) by four runs. Otago failed to repeat the previous year's feat, when they broke Canterbury's seven-year winning streak, as Canterbury captain Frederick Wilding
Frederick Wilding
Frederick Wilding played first-class cricket for Canterbury in the 1880s and 1890s....

took seven for 31 in Otago's chase of 92 to win. On the first day, William Reeves had hit 54 for Canterbury while Frank Cooke took eight wickets, six of them bowled
Bowled
Bowled is a method of dismissing a batsman in the sport of cricket. This method of dismissal is covered by Law 30 of the Laws of cricket.A batsman is out bowled if his wicket is put down by a ball delivered by the bowler...

, but Otago had been reduced to 32 for four in chase of 131. Hugh MacNeil's 58 brought parity, Otago leading by three runs when Wilding took the final wicket, but MacNeil chipped in with a couple of wickets on the third morning as Canterbury went from 73 for five to 94. Cooke took most of the other wickets to end with match figures of fifteen for 94. However, he was outshone by Wilding, who had Cooke and six others bowled as Canterbury snatched the win.

Taranaki's first class debut

24 March and 26 March 1883, Auckland Domain
Auckland Domain
The Auckland Domain is Auckland's oldest park, and at 75 hectares one of the largest in the city. Located in the central suburb of Grafton, the park contains all of the explosion crater and most of the surrounding tuff ring of the Pukekawa volcano....

, Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

: Auckland (241) beat Taranaki
Taranaki cricket team
Taranaki cricket team is a cricket team representing the Taranaki Region of New Zealand and currently competes in the Hawke Cup.Taranaki as a representative team played as early as 1877, later first playing first-class cricket in 1883 against Auckland at the Auckland Domain, with their first-class...

(63 & 55) by an innings and 123 runs. Taranaki travelled north to Auckland to make their first class debut, which ended with them posting the third and fifth lowest scores of the season, on the way to the heaviest defeat; of Taranaki's batsmen, only three made it into double figures over the two innings, and they were bowled out twice in a day after Auckland had made 241 on the first. It took nine years before Taranaki again played a match with first class status.

24 March and 26 March 1883, Basin Reserve
Basin Reserve
The Basin Reserve , is a cricket ground in Wellington, New Zealand, used for Test, first-class and one-day cricket. Some argue that its proximity to the city, its Historic Place status and its age make it the most famous cricket ground in New Zealand...

, Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

: Nelson (61 & 47) lost to Wellington (153) by an innings and 47 runs. Though no Wellington batsman made more than John Wood's 32 from number eight, it was enough to beat Nelson by an innings, as captain Joseph Firth and Wood (eight and seven wickets respectively) made inroads with the new ball on both days. Nelson scored at slower than one run an over in the first innings.

Most runs

Name	Team	Mat Match A match is a tool for starting a fire under controlled conditions. A typical modern match is made of a small wooden stick or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by frictional heat generated by striking the match against a suitable surface...	Inn Innings An inning, or innings, is a fixed-length segment of a game in any of a variety of sports – most notably cricket and baseball during which one team attempts to score while the other team attempts to prevent the first from scoring. In cricket, the term innings is both singular and plural and is...	NO Not out In cricket, a batsman will be not out if he comes out to bat in an innings and has not been dismissed by the end of the innings. One may similarly describe a batsman as not out while the innings is still in progress...	Runs Run (cricket) In the sport of cricket, a run is the basic unit of scoring. Runs are scored by a batsman, and the aggregate of the scores of a team's batsmen constitutes the team's score. A batsman scoring 50 or 100 runs , or any higher multiple of 50 runs, is considered a particular achievement...	Avg Batting average Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...	50
William Barton	Auckland	4	7	1	192	32.00	1
John Arneil John Arneil John Arneil was born 1862 in India and died 11 August 1938 in Auckland. He was a New Zealand cricketer who played nine first-class matches for the Auckland Aces....	Auckland	4	7	1	135	22.50	0
William Reeves	Canterbury	2	4	0	128	32.00	1
James Testro James Testro James Testro was a New Zealand cricketer who played nine first-class matches for the Auckland Aces in the 1880's....	Auckland	4	6	1	99	19.80	0
Robert Yates Robert Yates (cricketer) Robert John Yates was a New Zealand cricketer who played 15 first-class matches between the 1873–74 and 1893–94 seasons, all for Auckland....	Auckland	4	6	0	92	15.33	0

Most wickets

Name	Team	Mat Match A match is a tool for starting a fire under controlled conditions. A typical modern match is made of a small wooden stick or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by frictional heat generated by striking the match against a suitable surface...	Balls Delivery (cricket) A delivery or ball in cricket is a single action of bowling a cricket ball towards the batsman.During play of the game, a member of the fielding team is designated as the bowler, and bowls deliveries towards the batsman...	Runs Run (cricket) In the sport of cricket, a run is the basic unit of scoring. Runs are scored by a batsman, and the aggregate of the scores of a team's batsmen constitutes the team's score. A batsman scoring 50 or 100 runs , or any higher multiple of 50 runs, is considered a particular achievement...	Wkts Wicket In the sport of cricket the word wicket has several distinct meanings:-Definitions of wicket:Most of the time, the wicket is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch...	Avg Bowling average Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...	5wI	10wM
William Lankham William Lankham William Lankham was born 4 December 1861 in Auckland and died 2 December 1886 in Devonport. He was a New Zealand cricketer who played five first-class matches for Auckland before his death at the age of 24....	Auckland	4	1011	259	41	6.31	4	3
Frederick Wilding Frederick Wilding Frederick Wilding played first-class cricket for Canterbury in the 1880s and 1890s....	Canterbury	2	392	102	17	6.00	1	1
Frank Cooke Frank Cooke (cricketer) Frank Herbert Cooke was born 22 September 1862 in Northcote, Australia and died 10 June 1933 in Palmerston North. He was a New Zealand cricketer who played for Nelson and Otago in the 1880's.-External links:*...	Otago	1	258	94	15	6.26	2	1
J. Gill	Auckland	4	650	210	14	15.00	0	0
Joseph Firth	Wellington	2	540	140	13	10.76	0	0

Highest scores

74, William Barton for Auckland v Taranaki (24 March 1883)
58, Hugh MacNeil for Otago v Canterbury (9 February and 11 February 1883)
54, William Reeves for Canterbury v Otago (9 February 1883)
52, George Watson for Canterbury v Auckland (4 December and 5 December 1882)
49, Robert Yates for Auckland v Wellington (8 December and 9 December 1882)

Best match bowling figures

15–94, Frank Cooke for Otago v Canterbury (9 February–12 February 1883)
13–35, William Lanhkam for Auckland v Taranaki (26 March 1883)
11–66, Frederick Wilding for Canterbury v Otago (9 February–12 February 1883)
11–99, William Lankham for Auckland v Canterbury (2 December–5 December 1882)
10–56, William Lankham for Auckland v Nelson (13 December–14 December 1882)

External sources

CricketArchive – 1882-83 in New Zealand