Fuller Pilch's 153 Not Out for Kent v England — Town Malling, August 1841

The Kent eleven of the 1830s and 1840s, anchored by Alfred Mynn at his peak and Pilch at his, was widely held to be the strongest county side in England. Town Malling, owned and run by Selby, was the focus of Kent cricket in the years before Canterbury became established.

The Kent v England matches were the marquee fixtures of the early 1840s. Pilch had been a regular for Kent since 1836; by 1841 his name on a card was a guarantee of crowd interest.

Pilch was a Norfolk-born professional who had been engaged by Thomas Selby, the proprietor of the Town Malling ground, to play for Kent on a reputed retainer of £100 a year. By 1841 he was 38 and at the peak of his powers; his upright forward play and command of length bowling had been the model for a generation of batsmen. The Town Malling fixture of 1841 brought him face to face with the strongest England side of the day, including the slow underarm bowler William Lillywhite and the fast roundarmer Sam Redgate. Kent batted first, lost early wickets, and saw Pilch come in at three. He made 153 not out from a total of around 280, batting through the innings and treating bowling that had dismissed everyone else with the calm forward defence that Nyren had identified ten years earlier as 'the model of all batting'. The innings stood for several years as the highest score in a leading match. Kent won by an innings, the high point of the brief Town Malling era before Canterbury Week superseded it.

“Pilch's forward play was the very poetry of cricket; his style has never been surpassed.”

The innings cemented Pilch's contract with Kent and his reputation. He continued to play first-class cricket for another decade and finished as the highest-scoring batsman of the underarm and roundarm era.