Wiltshire County Cricket Club is one of twenty minor

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

clubs within the domestic

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

structure of England and Wales. Founded in 1893, it represents the historic county of

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

. The team is a member of the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

Western Division and plays in the MCCA Knockout Trophy. Wiltshire played List A matches occasionally from 1964 until 2005 but is not classified as a List A team ''per se''. The club is a member of Wiltshire Cricket Limited, the governing body for cricket in the county.

Venues

The club is peripatetic, playing its matches around the county at:CricketArchive – Wiltshire matches and venues
Retrieved on 30 May 2010. * Salisbury and South Wiltshire Sports Club, Salisbury * Station Road, Corsham * Trowbridge Cricket Club Ground * London Road, Devizes * Warminster Cricket Club Ground,

Warminster Warminster () is an ancient market town with a nearby garrison, and civil parish in south west Wiltshire, England, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. The parish had a population of about 17,000 in 2011. The 11th-century Minster Church o ...

County Cricket Ground, Swindon The County Ground is a cricket ground in Swindon, Wiltshire. The ground is located to the north of the County Football Ground used by Swindon Town. It has played host to first-class and List A cricket matches, in addition to playing host t ...

Honours

* Minor Counties Championship (2) – 1902, 1909

Earliest cricket

Cricket probably reached Wiltshire by the end of the 17th century. The earliest known reference to cricket in the county is dated 1769. John Major points out that "cricket did not spread evenly across whole counties" but had a tendency towards "local adoption". He mentions a match at Stockton, Wiltshire in 1799 which was reported as "an event so novel in the county of Wiltshire". But cricket was being played by then at several other venues in the county including Calne, Devizes, Marlborough,

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of ...

and Westbury.

Origin of club

A county organisation was formed on 24 February 1881. The present Wiltshire CCC was founded in January 1893, and joined the Minor Counties Championship for the 1897 season, competing every season since then.

History

Wiltshire has won the Minor Counties Championship twice, in 1902 and 1909. The Edwardian years were the club's "most successful period" and a 1903 report described the team as "the equal of any first-class county".Barclay, p.494. Wiltshire's original captain, until 1920, was

Audley Miller Audley Montague Miller (19 October 1869 – 26 June 1959) was an amateur cricketer who played one Test match for England in 1896, and stood as an umpire in two Tests, also in 1896. Life and career Miller was born in Gloucestershire and educ ...

, also of

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influe ...

(MCC), who had played a Test match for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

in South Africa in 1895–96. Miller was succeeded as captain by

Robert Awdry Robert Awdry (20 May 1881 – 3 February 1949) was an English cricketer who later became chairman of Wiltshire County Council. He played nine first-class matches for Oxford University Cricket Club between 1902 and 1904. The third son of ...

, who had played first-class cricket for

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

through 1902–04. Awdry led the side until 1934 and the next captain from 1935 to 1939 was

William Lovell-Hewitt William Lovell-Hewitt (7 November 1901 – 5 October 1984) was an English cricketer active in the 1920s and 1930s. Born at Trowle Manor, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, Lovell-Hewitt was a right-handed batsman who bowled right-arm medium bowler who ...

, who made 3 first-class appearances for the Minor Counties through 1938–39. The team experienced some lean seasons after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

but improved during the 1950s under the captaincy of James Hurn. The best players at this time were opening batsman John Thompson, formerly of

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avo ...

, who played regularly for Wiltshire from 1955 to 1958; and seamer Anthony Marshall, who played occasionally for

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

and was a Wiltshire stalwart from 1955 to 1970. David Richards, who played for Wiltshire from 1949 to 1965 was captain in the last three years of his career and the team were championship runners-up in both 1963 and 1964. Long-serving batsman Ian Lomax, who played for Wiltshire from 1950 to 1970, captained the side in the mid-sixties and played first-class for Somerset and MCC. He was succeeded in 1968 by Brian White, who served the county even longer, for 28 seasons from 1964 to 1991. White relinquished the captaincy after the 1980 season. All-rounder Richard Gulliver succeeded White and was captain until he retired in 1983. In Gulliver's last season, Wiltshire lost the Minor Counties Championship in the final match when they were beaten by

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

and that enabled

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primaril ...

to "pip them at the post". Wiltshire has never won the MCCA Knockout Trophy since its inception in 1983. The team was the beaten finalist in 1993, losing to

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands C ...

by 69 runs; and in 2005, losing to

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nor ...

by 6 wickets. Wiltshire has reached the semi-finals on four other occasions. Wiltshire has played numerous matches against first-class opponents, including touring teams, but none of these matches have themselves been classified as first-class. The team has played in several List A matches since 1964, all of them in the various incarnations of the ECB's limited overs knockout tournament.CricketArchive – Wiltshire's List A matches
Retrieved on 30 May 2010. Wiltshire's best performance in these matches was a victory over

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

by 7 wickets in 2000, but Wiltshire has never beaten a first-class team.

Notable players

The following Wiltshire cricketers also played with distinction in

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

: *

– MCC and

(1895 to 1903) * Bev Lyon –

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of ...

(1921 to 1948) * Jim Smith –

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

and

(1934 to 1939) * John Thompson –

(1938 to 1954) * Anthony Marshall –

(1950 to 1954) * Ian Lomax –

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lor ...

and MCC (1962 to 1965) * Andrew Caddick – New Zealand under-19s,

and

(1991 to 2009) * Jon Lewis –

and

(from 1995) * James Tomlinson –

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

(from 2002) * Liam Dawson –

(from 2007) *

Craig Miles Craig Neil Miles (born 20 July 1994) is an English cricketer who currently plays for Warwickshire. A right-handed batsman and right-hand medium pace bowler he made his first-class debut for Gloucestershire against Northamptonshire in May 201 ...

–

(from 2011) * Michael Bates – ex-Hampshire (2015 and 2016) * Jake Goodwin –

(2017)

References

Bibliography

* Rowland Bowen, ''Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development'', Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970 * ''Barclays World of Cricket'', (ed. E W Swanton), Willow Books, 1986 * John Major, ''More Than A Game'', HarperCollins, 2007 * Playfair Cricket Annual – various editions *

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

– various editions

External links

*
Minor Counties Cricket Association
{{minor counties National Counties cricket History of Wiltshire Cricket clubs established in 1893 Cricket in Wiltshire 1893 establishments in England