Champion County

• Lancashire, Nottinghamshire (shared)

Events

8 April (approx.). Formation of Warwickshire CCC at a meeting in Coventry

Coventry

Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...

.

10 May. Formation of Durham CCC.

Somerset CCC played its initial first-class match v. Lancashire at Old Trafford on 8, 9 & 10 June and joined the County Championship

County Championship

The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...

, but for only four seasons initially.

28 & 29 August. England v. Australia at The Oval

The Oval

The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...

 (only Test

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 of the season). Australia won the most famous match in history by 7 runs with F R Spofforth

Fred Spofforth

Frederick Robert "Fred" Spofforth , also known as "The Demon Bowler", was arguably the Australian cricket team's finest pace bowler of the nineteenth century and was the first bowler to take 50 Test wickets, and the first to take a test hat-trick in 1879...

, the original Demon Bowler, taking 7-46 and 7-44. Soon afterwards, The Sporting Times

The Sporting Times

The Sporting Times was a weekly British newspaper devoted chiefly to sport, and in particular to horse racing...

printed its legendary obituary notice:

In Affectionate Remembrance

of

ENGLISH CRICKET,

which died at the Oval

on

29th AUGUST, 1882,

Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing

friends and acquaintances

----

R.I.P.

----

N.B.—The body will be cremated and the

ashes taken to Australia.

Further details can be found in the articles History of Test cricket (to 1883)

History of Test cricket (to 1883)

Test matches in the period 1877 to 1883 were organised somewhat differently from international cricket matches today. The teams were rarely representative, and the boat trip between Australia and England, which usually lasted about 48 days, was one that many cricketers were unable or unwilling to...

 and The Ashes

The Ashes

The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...

.

External sources

• CricketArchive – season summaries

Annual reviews

• John Lillywhite's Cricketer's Companion (Green Lilly), Lillywhite, 1883
• James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual (Red Lilly), Lillywhite, 1883
• Wisden Cricketers Almanack 1883