1887 English cricket season

1887 was the 101st season of cricket in England since the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). Surrey was the leading county for the first time in over twenty years,^[1] a status they would retain until 1892.^{[note 1]}

Champion County

^[a]

Surrey

Playing record (by county)

County	Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	Points^[b]
Derbyshire	6	0	6	0	0.0
Gloucestershire	14	1	9	4	3.0
Kent	14	1	8	5	3.5
Lancashire	14	10	3	1	10.5
Middlesex	10	4	2	4	6.0
Nottinghamshire	14	8	3	3	9.5
Surrey	16	12	2	2	13.0
Sussex	12	2	8	2	3.0
Yorkshire	16	6	3	7	9.5

^[1]

Leading batsmen (qualification 20 innings)

1887 English season leading batsmen^[6]
Name	Team	Matches	Innings	Not outs	Runs	Highest score	Average	100s	50s
Arthur Shrewsbury	Nottinghamshire	17	23	6	1653	267	78.71	8	5
WG Grace	Gloucestershire Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC)	24	46	8	2062	183 not out	54.26	6	8
Alexander Webbe	Middlesex Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC)	18	31	5	1244	243 not out	47.84	3	3
Walter Read	Surrey	23	36	2	1615	247	47.50	5	5
Kingsmill Key	Oxford University Surrey	24	44	5	1684	281	43.17	2	10

Leading bowlers (qualification 1,000 balls)

1887 English season leading bowlers^[7]
Name	Team	Balls bowled	Runs conceded	Wickets taken	Average	Best bowling	5 wickets in innings	10 wickets in match
Henry Richardson	Nottinghamshire	2322	613	45	13.62	6/58	3	0
William Attewell	Nottinghamshire	5361	1238	89	13.91	6/24	6	1
Alec Watson	Lancashire	6130	1482	100	14.82	7/20	9	3
John Rawlin	Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC)	2152	675	45	15.00	7/47	3	1
George Lohmann	Surrey	6526	2404	154	15.61	8/36	16	6

Notable events

The driest English cricket season since 1870,^[8] combined with improvements to pitches from the heavy roller, allowed for a large number of notable batting feats:

Five batsmen with twenty or more innings averaged over 40. Before 1887, no more than two had ever done so in one season.^[9]
W.G. Grace for the third time reached 2,000 runs; an aggregate not reached by any other batsman until 1893.
Arthur Shrewsbury averaged 78.71 for twenty-three innings, beating W.G. Grace's 1871 record of 78.25. This was not beaten until Robert Poore averaged 91.23 in 1899.
Shrewsbury's innings of 267 against Middlesex, at 615 minutes,^[10] remains the longest innings ever played in a county match.
Walter Read became the first batsman to play two consecutive innings of over 200,^[11] scoring 247 against Lancashire^[12] and 244 against Cambridge University^[13]

For the last time until 1970,^[14] no bowler took nine wickets in an innings, with the best analysis being eight for 26 by Dick Barlow.
As a result of some extremely bad results (only three wins and twenty-nine losses from thirty-five games) and financial trouble, Derbyshire were demoted from first-class status at the end of the season, not to return until 1895.
An unofficial points system of one point for a win and half a point for a draw^[1] was devised by the "Cricket Reporting Agency" as a replacement for the former method of fewest matches lost to decide the "Champion County". Along with a more rigid schedule, it became the ancestor of the official County Championship from 1890 onwards.

Labels

^a An unofficial seasonal title sometimes proclaimed by consensus of media and historians prior to December 1889 when the official County Championship was constituted. Although there are ante-dated claims prior to 1873, when residence qualifications were introduced, it is only since that ruling that any quasi-official status can be ascribed.
^b The 1887 season saw an unofficial point system of 1 point for a win and 0.5 points for a draw devised by the "Cricket Reporting Agency"

Notes

^ Some eleven-a-side matches played from 1772 to 1863 have been rated "first-class" by certain sources.^[2] However, the term only came into common use around 1864, when overarm bowling was legalised. It was formally defined as a standard by a meeting at Lord's, in May 1894, of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and the county clubs which were then competing in the County Championship. The ruling was effective from the beginning of the 1895 season, but pre-1895 matches of the same standard have no official definition of status because the ruling is not retrospective.^[3] Matches of a similar standard since the beginning of the 1864 season are generally considered to have an unofficial first-class status.^[4] Pre-1864 matches which are included in the ACS' "Important Match Guide" may generally be regarded as top-class or, at least, historically significant.^[5] For further information, see First-class cricket.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Wynne-Thomas, Peter; The Rigby A-Z of Cricket Records; p. 54 ISBN 072701868X
^ "First-Class matches in England in 1772". CricketArchive. Retrieved 29 November 2025.
^ Wisden (1948). Preston, Hubert (ed.). Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (85th ed.). London: Sporting Handbooks Ltd. p. 813. OCLC 851705816.
^ ACS 1982, pp. 4–5.
^ ACS 1981, pp. 1–40.
^ First Class Batting in England in 1887
^ First Class Bowling in England in 1887
^ Hadley Centre England and Wales Precipitation
^ Wynne-Thomas; The Rigby A-Z of Cricket Records; pp. 17–20
^ Nottinghamshire v Middlesex in 1887
^ Webber, Roy; The Playfair Book of Cricket Records; p. 43. Published 1951 by Playfair Books.
^ Lancashire v Surrey in 1887
^ Surrey v Cambridge University in 1887
^ Preston, Norman (editor); Wisden, 108th Edition (1971); p. 278

Bibliography

ACS (1981). A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709–1863. Nottingham: ACS. OCLC 85045528.
ACS (1982). A Guide to First-class Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles. Nottingham: ACS. OCLC 10586869.
Warner, Pelham (1946). Lords: 1787–1945. London: Harrap. OCLC 877106024.

Annual reviews

James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual (Red Lilly), Lillywhite, 1888
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1888