1907 English cricket season explained

Previous Year:	1906
Previous Tournament:	1906 English cricket season
Next Year:	1908
Next Tournament:	1908 English cricket season

1907 was the 18th season of County Championship cricket in England. Nottinghamshire won their first official title.^[1] England played their sixth Test series against South Africa but it was the first to be held in England.^[2]

South African tour

See main article: South African cricket team in England in 1907. This was the fourth South African tour of England following those in 1894, 1901 and 1904. The 1907 tour was the first to feature Test matches between England and South Africa in England, although the teams had played Tests in South Africa since 1888–89. England won the series 1–0 with two matches drawn.

Series summary

First Test at Lord's^[3] – match drawn
Second Test at Headingley^[4] – England won by 53 runs
Third Test at The Oval^[5] – match drawn

County Championship

See main article: 1907 County Championship.

	County	Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	Abandoned	Points	Finished Games	%
1		20	15	0	4	1	15	15	100.00
2		18	8	2	10	0	6	10	60.00
2		28	12	3	11	2	9	15	60.00
4		28	12	4	12	0	8	16	50.00
5	Middlesex	20	8	4	8	1	4	12	33.33
6	Lancashire	26	11	7	6	1	4	18	22.22
7		22	10	7	5	0	3	17	17.64
8		26	12	9	5	0	3	21	14.28
9		20	6	5	8	1	1	11	9.09
10		22	8	12	2	0	-4	20	-20.00
11		20	6	10	4	0	-4	16	-25.00
12		24	6	11	7	0	-5	17	-29.41
13		26	7	13	6	0	-6	20	-30.00
14		18	3	12	3	0	-9	16	-66.66
15		20	2	12	6	0	-10	14	-71.42
16		22	2	17	1	2	-15	19	-78.94
Details as recorded in John Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanack.^[6]

Points system:

1 for a win
0 for a draw, a tie or an abandoned match
-1 for a loss

Minor Counties Championship

An entirely new system of scoring was adopted for the Minor Counties Championship in 1907. With Oxfordshire dropping out and Lincolnshire and Worcestershire Second Eleven coming in, the twenty-one Minor Counties clubs were split into four divisions – North, Midlands, East and West – and a system of semi-finals between division leaders and a final was used to determine the winner.^[7]

North

	Played	Won	Won on 1st inns	No result	Possible points	Points obtained	%
1	9	5	3	0	45	34	75.55
2	9	5	1	0	45	28	62.22
3	10	3	1	1	45	18	40.00
4	10	2	2	1	45	16	35.55
5	10	3	0	0	50	15	30.00
6	10	1	1	2	40	8	20.00

One match between Lancashire Second Eleven and Staffordshire was abandoned without a ball bowled due to rain.

Midlands

	Played	Won	Won on 1st inns	Possible points	Points obtained	%
1	8	6	1	40	33	82.50
2	8	4	1	40	23	57.50
3	8	4	1	40	19	47.50
4	8	2	0	40	10	25.00
5	8	0	1	40	3	7.50

East

	Played	Won	Won on 1st inns	No result	Possible points	Points obtained	%
1	8	6	1	0	40	33	75.00
2	8	4	1	0	40	23	57.50
3	8	2	1	1	35	13	37.14
4	8	2	1	0	40	13	32.50
5	8	2	0	1	35	10	28.57

West

	Played	Won	Won on 1st inns	Possible points	Points obtained	%
1	8	6	2	40	36	90.00
2	8	4	0	40	20	50.00
3	8	2	1	40	13	32.50
4	8	1	2	40	11	27.50
5	8	1	1	40	8	20.00

Points system:

5 for an outright win
3 for a win on the first innings
0 for a loss either outright or on the first innings of a drawn match

Matches with no first innings result are ignored when calculating maximum possible points.

Semi-finals

22 August – Lancashire Second Eleven 263 defeated Hertfordshire 85 and 101 by an innings and 77 runs^[8]
29 August – Surrey Second Eleven 198 and 103 lost to Glamorgan 146 and 156 for six wickets by four wickets^[9]

Final

Lancashire Second Eleven 243 and 121 defeated Glamorgan 74 and 182 by 108 runs.^[10]

Wisden Cricketers of the Year

Albert Hallam, Reginald Schwarz, Frank Tarrant, Bert Vogler, Thomas Wass

Leading batsmen (qualification 20 innings)

1907 English season leading batsmen^[11]
Name	Team	Matches	Innings	Not outs	Runs	Highest score	Average	100s	50s
C.B. Fry		19	34	3	1449	187	46.74	4	5
		27	47	6	1891	149	46.12	3	13
		34	58	6	2353	161	45.25	7	12
		12	21	1	835	129	41.75	3	4
Geoffrey Foster		18	33	4	1182	163	40.75	2	6
Henry Foster		19	33	3	1127	152	37.56	3	5
		37	63	6	2135	166 not out	37.45	4	15
Arthur Hill		11	20	1	711	116	37.42	1	5
Percy Perrin		20	34	2	1194	117	37.31	3	8
Tip Foster		16	25	1	888	174	37.00	2	4

Leading bowlers (qualification 1,000 balls)

1907 English season leading bowlers^[12]
Name	Team	Balls bowled	Runs conceded	Wickets taken	Average	Best bowling	5 wickets in innings	10 wickets in match
		4269	1616	137	11.80	7/41	12	2
		5617	2133	168	12.69	8/67	20	6
	Yorkshire	3567	1308	102	12.82	7/13	8	1
		5316	2328	163	14.28	8/65	17	6
		2715	1092	76	14.36	7/42	7	2
		1661	824	56	14.71	7/33	3	1
		6831	2799	183	15.29	9/45	17	4
		6817	2822	183	15.42	10/30	17	6
		1714	683	44	15.52	8/48	4	1
		6265	2693	173	15.56	6/19	13	2

Notable events

1 June – Colin Blythe takes 17 wickets for 48 runs in one day's cricket against Northamptonshire, setting two records:

The best bowling analysis in a first-class match, beaten only by Jim Laker when he took nineteen wickets for 90 runs for England against Australia in 1956.
The first bowler to take seventeen wickets in a single day – a feat since equalled only by Hedley Verity in 1933 and Tom Goddard in 1939.^[13]

Playing against Gloucestershire at the Spa Ground in June, Northamptonshire were dismissed in their first innings for only 12 runs, which is still the lowest innings total in the history of the County Championship.^[14]
As many as ten pairs of bowlers bowled unchanged throughout two completed innings during a match, the most on record in English cricket history.^[15] ^[16]

Notes

The match between Middlesex and Lancashire at Lord's was abandoned when it was found the pitch was trampled by impatient spectators.

Bibliography

H S Altham, A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914), George Allen & Unwin, 1962
Bill Frindall, The Wisden Book of Test Cricket 1877-1978, Wisden, 1979
Sydney H. Pardon (editor), John Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanack, Forty-Fifth Edition, Wisden, 1908
Roy Webber, The Playfair Book of Cricket Records, Playfair Books, 1951

External links

CricketArchive - England in 1907

Notes and References

Book: Engel, Matthew . Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2004, pages 493-494 . 2004 . John Wisden & Company Ltd . 0-947766-83-9.
Book: Wynne-Thomas, Peter . The Hamlyn A-Z of Cricket Records . 1983 . Hamlyn Publishing Group . 0-600-34667-6.
http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Scorecards/7/7335.html South Africa in British Isles 1907 (1st Test)
http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Scorecards/7/7385.html South Africa in British Isles 1907 (2nd Test)
http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Scorecards/7/7431.html South Africa in British Isles 1907 (3rd Test)
Pardon, p. 49.
Pardon, p. 394.
http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Scorecards/7/7444.html Lancashire Second XI v Hertfordshire in 1907
http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Scorecards/87/87403.html Glamorgan v Surrey Second XI in 1907
http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Scorecards/7/7465.html Glamorgan v Lancashire Second XI in 1907
http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Seasons/Seasonal_Averages/ENG/1907_f_Batting_by_Average.html First Class Batting in England in 1907
http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Seasons/Seasonal_Averages/ENG/1907_f_Bowling_by_Average.html First Class Bowling in England in 1907
Frindall, p. 255.
Web site: Gloucestershire v Northamptonshire in 1907. 3 September 2012.
Webber, pp. 168-171.
Frindall, pp. 285-289.