William Denison (cricketer)
Encyclopedia
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
in the mid-19th century as a player, administrator and writer.
He was a member of MCC
Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...
, for whom he played on a few occasions in first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
matches. Denison only played occasionally in major cricket. His career spanned the 1832 to 1847 seasons but he only appeared 8 times, scoring just 34 runs at 3.77 with a highest score of 12. He was more successful as a bowler and took 30 wickets at 12.41 with best figures of 6-72. He was apparently the first player brave enough to bowl roundarm slows in major matches, for which he acqiured the nickname "Stick 'em up" Denison.
Denison is best known for being the original secretary of Surrey CCC when it was founded in 1845. He stayed in the post, which was then honorary (i.e. unpaid), until 1848. He made one appearance for the club, in their inaugural first-class match against MCC in May, 1846.
He was a writer who reported cricket for The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
in the 1840s and was also on the staff of the Sporting Magazine. He wrote a book called Cricket Sketches of the Players (1846) which reflected his involvement with the All-England Eleven
William Clarke's All-England Eleven
The All-England Eleven was an itinerant all-professional first-class cricket team created in 1846 by Nottinghamshire cricketer William Clarke. Widely known by its acronym AEE, it took advantage of opportunities offered by the newly developed railways to play against local teams throughout Great...
. He also produced a publication called the Cricketer's Companion which appeared annually from 1844 to 1847.
External sources
Further reading
- Arthur HaygarthArthur HaygarthArthur Haygarth was a noted amateur cricketer who became one of cricket's most significant historians....
, Scores & Biographies, Volume 3 (1841-1848), Lillywhite, 1862