Kent vs MCC
1813-09-09
On 9-10 September 1813 Kent played the MCC at the Vine, Sevenoaks — the first post-war major match at the historic Kent ground and the start of the Vine's revival as a regular major venue. The Vine had hosted little major cricket since 1808; the September 1813 fixture marked its return to the front rank.
MCC vs Surrey
1813-07-26
On 26 July 1813 the weekly sporting paper Bell's Life in London printed a complete batter-by-batter scorecard of the previous week's MCC v Surrey match — the earliest documented printed scorecard in the British press. The publication of full scoresheets in the popular sporting press transformed cricket's reach: from this point major matches reached an audience of tens of thousands of readers, far beyond the few hundred who attended in person.
MCC vs Epsom
1813-09-04
On 4-5 September 1813 the MCC played Epsom in the final match at Lord's Middle Ground at North Bank — Thomas Lord's second cricket ground, opened only four years earlier in 1809. The site had been compulsorily purchased for an extension of the Regent's Canal. The closure forced Lord to find a third site, which he duly opened on St John's Wood Road in 1814 — the present Lord's.
Cambridge Town vs Cambridge University
1813-08-11
On 11-12 August 1813 a Cambridge University XI played a Cambridge Town side on Parker's Piece — the earliest documented Town v Gown cricket match in Cambridge. The match is a milestone in the development of university cricket: it was the first time the undergraduates had played a non-college outside opponent, and it set the pattern for the inter-town fixtures that became central to Cambridge cricket through the nineteenth century.
Various private elevens at Lord's Middle Ground
1813-06-09
In the three years between 1811 and 1813, with the Napoleonic War at its height and the country bleeding men and money, only three senior cricket matches were played in England — all of them at Lord's Middle Ground in Marylebone. The fixture lists of the previous century shrank to a handful of private challenges between the elevens of Aislabie, Beauclerk, Osbaldeston and Bligh. County cricket effectively ceased to exist; the great clubs of Kent, Surrey and Hampshire scarcely fielded a senior side. Cricket survived only through the obstinacy of a few amateurs at Lord's.