#press

3 incidents tagged

The Sporting Times Mock Obituary — How a Joke Became a Trophy, 1882

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.

#the-ashes#sporting-times#reginald-brooks

⭐Mild

Earliest Cricket Periodical: The Cricketer's Companion — 1823

n/a

1823-05-01

In May 1823 a small-format periodical titled The Cricketer's Companion appeared in London — the earliest documented dedicated cricket publication in any language. It contained match reports, instruction, scoresheets and short articles on the laws. Only four issues were published before the venture folded; surviving copies are scarce. It is the foundation entry of cricket-specialist journalism.

#roundarm-era#press#cricketers-companion

⭐Mild

First Newspaper-Printed Scorecard — Bell's Life in London, July 1813

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.

#regency-cricket#underarm#scorecard