India / England
1933-04-02
On 2 April 1933 Ranjitsinhji — Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, England Test cricketer, leg-glance pioneer and the most famous Indian-born sportsman of his generation — died at Jamnagar at the age of 60. His death prompted a global cricket obituary and gave the Ranji Trophy, founded the next year, its name.
England and beyond
1916-04-15
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1916, published in spring 1916 and edited by Sydney Pardon, ran the longest obituary section in the publication's history — listing dozens of first-class cricketers killed in the first eighteen months of war and including W.G. Grace, Victor Trumper and A.E. Stoddart in a single calendar year.
Australia
1915-06-28
Victor Trumper, the most adored batsman of cricket's Golden Age and to many Australians the finest stylist the game has produced, died of Bright's disease at his Sydney home on 28 June 1915. He was 37 years old. The funeral procession through Sydney was one of the largest the city had ever seen.
England
1915-10-23
William Gilbert Grace, the Victorian giant who had effectively invented modern batsmanship and dominated English cricket for forty years, died at his home in Mottingham on 23 October 1915. He was 67. The Zeppelin raids over London in his final weeks were said by family to have agitated him beyond endurance.
England v Australia
1882-09-02
Four days after Australia's 7-run win at The Oval, the satirical weekly The Sporting Times printed a 30-line mock obituary by Reginald Shirley Brooks announcing the death of English cricket and noting that 'the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.' The squib was meant for one Saturday's amusement and ended up giving cricket its most enduring trophy name.
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1831-03-09
On 9 March 1831 Thomas 'Old Everlasting' Walker — the most famous defensive batter of the Hambledon school and one of the last surviving regulars of the great 1780s side — died at Churt, Surrey, in his early seventies. With Beldham still alive but long retired, Walker's death effectively closed the personal lineage of Hambledon cricket as a presence in the contemporary game.
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1829-04-23
On 23 April 1829 Thomas Howard — the Surrey fast underarm bowler who had been the leading pace exponent of the period 1809-1815 — died at Mitcham aged around forty-nine. Howard's death is the closing of one of the major late-underarm-era careers and a marker of the era's mortality.
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1826-08-02
On 2 August 1826 George Finch-Hatton, ninth Earl of Winchilsea — co-founder of the MCC, principal patron of late-Hambledon cricket, and the most important supporter of major cricket between 1780 and 1810 — died at Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland. His death closed an era of aristocratic cricket patronage that had begun in the 1730s.
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1823-03-12
On 12 March 1823 William Fennex — the Buckinghamshire professional who had pioneered the running drive in 1803 — died at Buckingham aged sixty. He had been the first batter to advance down the pitch to drive the bowler before the ball pitched, a stroke that became the foundation of modern attacking batting. His death is the closing of an important Regency career.
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1816-07-07
On 7 July 1816 Richard Brinsley Sheridan — playwright, parliamentarian and one of cricket's most enthusiastic Regency supporters — died in London. Sheridan had joined the MCC in the 1790s and was a regular at Dorset Square and the Middle Ground. His death is one of the small markers of the Regency cricket establishment's mortality.
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1800-07-19
Joseph 'Joey' Ring of Hambledon — left-arm fast underarm bowler and one of the last surviving regulars of the great Hambledon side of the 1780s — died at Hambledon in July 1800 in his early forties. His death is one of the markers historians use for the end of the Hambledon era proper: of the eleven who beat England at Sevenoaks in 1777, only Beldham, Walker and a handful of fielders were still in major cricket.