Shropshire County Cricket Club is one of the county

Historic counties of England

The historic counties of England are subdivisions of England established for administration by the Normans and in most cases based on earlier Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and shires...

 clubs which make up the Minor Counties

Minor counties of English cricket

The Minor Counties are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that are not afforded first-class status. The game is administered by the Minor Counties Cricket Association which comes under the England and Wales Cricket Board...

 in the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 domestic cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 structure, representing the historic county of Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

 and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy

MCCA Knockout Trophy

The Minor Counties Cricket Association Knockout Cup was started in 1983 as a knockout one-day competition for the Minor Counties in English cricket...

.

The club is based at Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish home to some 70,000 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council...

 and also plays matches around the county at Bridgnorth

Bridgnorth

Bridgnorth is a town in Shropshire, England, along the Severn Valley. It is split into Low Town and High Town, named on account of their elevations relative to the River Severn, which separates the upper town on the right bank from the lower on the left...

, Oswestry

Oswestry

Oswestry is a town and civil parish in Shropshire, England, close to the Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5, A483, and A495 roads....

, Shifnal

Shifnal

Shifnal is a small market town in Shropshire, England. It forms part of The Wrekin constituency, and is about east of Telford. It has a railway station on the Shrewsbury-Wolverhampton Line and is near to the M54 motorway.-Early medieval time:...

, Wellington

Wellington, Shropshire

Wellington is a town in the unitary authority of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England and now forms part of the new town of Telford. The population of the parish of Wellington was recorded as 20,430 in the 2001 census, making it the third largest town in Shropshire if...

, and Whitchurch

Whitchurch, Shropshire

Whitchurch is a market town in Shropshire, England on the border between England and Wales. It is the oldest continuously inhabited town in Shropshire. According to the 2001 Census, the population of the town is 8,673, with a more recent estimate putting the population of the town at 8,934...

.

The Minor Counties play three-day matches at a level below that of the first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 game. At present, Shropshire competes in the Western Division of the Minor Counties Championship. The MCCA Knockout Trophy is a limited overs (one-day) competition.

Honours

• Minor Counties Championship (1) - 1973; shared (0) -
• MCCA Knockout Trophy (1) - 2010

Earliest cricket

Cricket probably reached Shropshire in the 18th century. According to Bowen, the first reference to cricket in the county was in 1794.

Origin of club

A county organisation existed in either 1819 or 1829, according to Wisden. The present county club is quite new, having been formed on 28 June 1956 and taking part in the Minor Counties Championship from 1957.

Club history

Shropshire has won the Minor Counties Championship once, in 1973. This was the first time the county had even finished in the top 10 of the Minor Counties competition.

Shropshire won the MCCA Knockout Trophy

MCCA Knockout Trophy

The Minor Counties Cricket Association Knockout Cup was started in 1983 as a knockout one-day competition for the Minor Counties in English cricket...

, an annual competition that began in 1983, in 2010.

Notable players

The following Shropshire cricketers also made an impact on the first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 game:

• Mushtaq Mohammad
  Mushtaq Mohammad
  Mushtaq Mohammad is a former Pakistani cricketer who played in 57 Tests and 10 ODIs from 1959 to 1979. A right-handed batsman and a leg-spinner, he is one of the most successful Pakistani all-rounders and went on to captain his country in nineteen Test matches...
  
  
• Doug Slade
  Doug Slade
  Douglas Norman Frank Slade is a former English cricketer who played for Worcestershire and Shropshire.Slade scored 5275 runs at 18.06 and took 502 wickets at 23.47 with his slow left hand bowling in a career with Worcestershire that lasted from 1958 until 1971.Slade came to prominence in his first...
  
   (former Worcestershire slow left-arm bowler)
• Somachandra de Silva
  Somachandra de Silva
  Dandeniyage Somachandra de Silva is a former Sri Lankan cricketer. He bowled leg spin, and captained the Sri Lankan cricket team for two Test matches in 1983, as the regular captain, Duleep Mendis missed the tour of New Zealand due to injury...
  
  
• Andy Lloyd
  Andy Lloyd (cricketer)
  Andy Lloyd is a former English cricketer, who played in one Test and three ODIs for England in 1984. His only Test was against the West Indies in June 1984. After making ten runs, and batting for thirty three minutes, he was hit on the head by the West Indies fast bowler, Malcolm Marshall...
  
  
• Ian Payne
  Ian Payne (cricketer)
  Ian Roger Payne is a former professional Cricketer.He was educated at Emanuel School and began his career with Surrey in 1975 until 1984 and won The Cricket Society Wetherall Award for the Leading All-Rounder in English Schools Cricket in 1976...
  
  

Also professional footballer Steve Ogrizovic

Steve Ogrizovic

Steven "Oggy" Ogrizovic is a former English goalkeeper who achieved fame during 16 years at Coventry City...

 has played cricket for Shropshire.

External sources

• Shropshire CCC
• Minor Counties Cricket Association Official Site

Further reading

• Rowland Bowen
  Rowland Bowen
  Major Rowland Francis Bowen was a cricket researcher, historian and writer....
  
  , Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970
• E W Swanton (editor), Barclays World of Cricket, Guild, 1986

• Playfair Cricket Annual
  Playfair Cricket Annual
  Playfair Cricket Annual is a compact annual about cricket that is published in the United Kingdom each April, just before the English cricket season is due to begin. Its main purposes are to review the previous English season and to provide detailed career records and potted biographies of current...
  
   – various editions
• Wisden Cricketers Almanack – various editions