Pappus' plane - cricket stats

This is Part 5 in my series on cricket in the 1800's in England.

1 - data
2 - classification of matches
3 - filling in the gaps
4 - bowlers
5 - batsmen
6 - bowlers across eras
7 - batsmen across eras
8 - all-rounders (across eras)
9 - wicket-keepers

(Edit: I've fixed a number of typos in the tables. The runs and averages were correct, but somehow the innings and not-outs had got all mixed up.)

This post is nothing statistically special — just a few lists of batsmen. Batting data for first-class cricket is essentially complete, so there's no need for fancy estimation techniques for calculating averages etc.

The leading batting averages for the 1800's come exclusively from players who played near the end of the century, when batting became easier. Qualification (for all tables in this post): 2000 runs.

name            start end   mat  inns  no  runs  avg     wkts   runs  avg     +/- %
RM Poore        1898  1899  26   47    6   2277  55,54   0      13    0,00    0
KS Ranjitsinhji 1893  1899  128  232   28  10411 51,03   67     2340  34,93   0
WG Grace        1865  1899  732  1250  89  46792 40,30   2495   43960 17,62   0
WG Quaife       1894  1899  120  203   39  6122  37,33   55     1792  32,58   0
TW Hayward      1893  1899  191  283   26  9558  37,19   364    7367  20,24   0
CJ Burnup       1895  1899  77   137   12  4633  37,06   22     855   38,86   0
PA Perrin       1896  1899  76   131   13  4336  36,75   2      109   54,50   0
CB Fry          1892  1899  114  209   8   7364  36,64   149    4046  27,15   0 
A Shrewsbury    1875  1899  400  654   66  20837 35,44   0      2     0,00    0
J Darling       1896  1899  67   109   10  3496  35,31   1      38    38,00   0

Robert Poore's pretty lucky that I stopped at 1899. In his last season of cricket before fighting in the Boer War, he scored a triple century and averaged over 90. When he returned to first-class cricket in 1902, he did not return to those heights, and his first-class career finished with an average under 40. Ranjitsinhji, on the other hand, was able to sustain his average, and indeed it finished over 56 (with a Test average in the mid-40's as well).

Joe Darling is the first Australian to make any of these lists. His presence arises from his scores in the Australian tours of England in 1896 and 1899.

Now let's look at the leading batsmen by runs scored.

name            start end   mat  inns  no  runs  avg     wkts   runs  avg     +/- %
WG Grace        1865  1899  732  1250  89  46792 40,30   2495   43960 17,62   0
R Abel          1881  1899  468  743   48  22846 32,87   246    5644  22,94   0
W Gunn          1880  1899  437  716   65  21520 33,06   74     1660  22,43   0
WW Read         1873  1897  450  723   50  21408 31,81   101    3339  33,06   0
A Shrewsbury    1875  1899  400  654   66  20837 35,44   0      2     0       0
G Ulyett        1873  1893  499  862   39  19031 23,12   598    11765 19,67   0
AN Hornby       1867  1899  422  687   41  15752 24,38   7      179   25,57   0
H Jupp          1862  1881  375  686   48  15244 23,89   7      316   45,14   0
W Barnes        1875  1894  421  666   54  14108 23,05   803    13935 17,35   0
AE Stoddart     1885  1899  255  449   54  13799 31,72   206    5553  26,96   0

We see that WG Grace, as well as taking comfortably more wickets than anyone else, scored more than twice as many first-class runs in England than any other batsman in the 1800's! Of course, he did play many more matches (second on that list is George Ulyett with 499), but you can see how he was such a giant of the game, and why he remains famous to this day.

Henry Jupp, who represented England in the first two Test matches, is the only player in that table to have ended his career before 1890. Here are some other players to have passed 2000 runs, ordered by the start season of their careers:

name             start end   mat inns  no  runs  avg     wkts   runs    avg   +/- %
Lord F Beauclerk 1801  1825  94  172   14  4319  27,34   406,4  5106,9  12,6  10
W Lambert        1801  1817  62  112   5   2961  27,67   318,1  3960,3  12,5  10
W Beldham        1801  1821  69  127   7   2265  18,88   96,0   1193,0  12,4  10
R Robinson       1801  1819  57  111   9   2039  19,99   34,7   802,4   23,1  10
EH Budd          1803  1831  68  119   9   2597  23,61   285,8  4200,8  14,7  10
W Ward           1810  1845  116 210   21  3517  18,61   73,0   1511,4  20,7  10
J Broadbridge    1814  1840  90  163   21  2368  16,68   405,6  3699,7  9,1   9,9
F Pilch          1820  1854  213 389   30  6797  18,93   169,5  1666,3  9,8   9,4
EG Wenman        1825  1854  135 241   15  3088  13,66   62,2   485,7   7,8   10
FW Lillywhite    1825  1851  220 390   84  2203  7,20    1599,8 14181,1 8,9   8,5

Beauclerk and Lambert we met in Part 4. Billy Beldham (whose photograph you can see here) perhaps played his best cricket in the late 18th century, in matches that are not classified as first-class. He is credited with being a founder of what might be called proto-modern batting technique. Batting has evolved a long way since then! While Beldham and his contemporaries stepped forward to meet the ball, it would take about another half-century before batsmen played attacking strokes off either the front foot or the back, and strokes off the pads were developed by Ranji late close to 1900.

Robert Robinson is a rather anonymous figure as far as the Internet is concerned. I haven't managed to find much out about him, despite him having been one of the leading batsmen of the day. He also played in the 18th century, and scored a century in his first important match for which CricketArchive has a full scorecard (Kent v Hampshire, 1792).

Next up: Adjusting bowling averages for era and the quality of wickets taken.