1904 English cricket season

1904 was the 15th season of County Championship cricket in England. Lancashire went through the season unbeaten and clinched the Championship title. Lancashire drew ten games, but their 16 wins were still more than any other team could muster. Defending champions Middlesex fell to fourth place, losing two successive matches to Kent and Nottinghamshire in June to have a negative percentage five games into the season. They did eventually win nine games, though, which was enough to take them past everyone bar Yorkshire and Kent. Yorkshire were two losses from sharing the Championship with Lancashire, and drew with the Champions on both occasions; despite Lancashire following on in their match at Headingley, Johnny Tyldesley made an unbeaten century from number three to draw the game.[1] However, even a win in this match could not have given Yorkshire the title.

1904 English cricket season

Honours

• County Championship - Lancashire
• Minor Counties Championship - Northamptonshire
• Wisden - Bernard Bosanquet, Ernest Halliwell, James Hallows, Percy Perrin, Reggie Spooner

County Championship

Main article: 1904 County Championship

Final table

The final County Championship table is shown below. One point was awarded for a win, none for a draw, and minus one for a loss. Positions were decided on percentage of points over completed games.

County Championship 1904 - Final Standings
	Team	P	W	L	D	A	Pts	GC^1	Pts/GC (as %)
1	Lancashire	26	16	0	10	0	16	16	100.00
2	Yorkshire	27	9	2	16	0	7	11	63.64
3	Kent	21	10	4	7	0	6	14	42.86
4	Middlesex	18	9	4	5	0	5	13	38.46
5	Nottinghamshire	20	7	4	9	0	3	11	27.27
6	Sussex	24	5	4	15	0	1	9	11.11
=7	Leicestershire	20	6	6	8	0	0	12	0.00
=7	Warwickshire	16	5	5	6	0	0	10	0.00
9	Gloucestershire	18	5	6	7	0	-1	11	-9.09
10	Derbyshire	18	5	8	5	0	-3	13	-23.08
11	Surrey	28	6	12	10	0	-6	18	-33.33
12	Somerset	18	5	11	2	0	-6	16	-37.50
13	Worcestershire	18	3	8	7	0	-5	11	-45.45
14	Essex	20	3	10	7	0	-7	13	-53.85
15	Hampshire	18	2	12	4	0	-10	14	-71.43

• ¹ Games completed

Points system:

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

Most runs in the County Championship

1904 County Championship - leading batsmen
Name	Team	Matches	Runs	Average	100s	50s
C. B. Fry	Sussex	23	2376	79.20	9	4
Johnny Tyldesley	Lancashire	25	2237	69.90	8	7
Tom Hayward	Surrey	26	2074	50.58	7	9
George Herbert Hirst	Yorkshire	27	1848	51.33	6	8
James Iremonger	Nottinghamshire	19	1812	60.40	5	8

Most wickets in the County Championship

1904 County Championship - leading bowlers
Name	Team	Matches	Balls bowled	Wickets taken	Average
Edward Dennett	Gloucestershire	18	5901	123	19.36
Colin Blythe	Kent	21	5385	121	19.38
George Cox	Sussex	23	6564	112	23.50
James Hallows	Lancashire	24	5319	108	18.71
Bill Reeves	Essex	20	5176	106	26.16

South Africans tour

Main article: South African cricket team in England in 1904

The South Africans toured England during the season, playing 22 matches. Most of them were against regular first-class sides, but there were also matches against an England XI (with five players who had already played Test cricket), against Marylebone Cricket Club (with two Test players) and a South of England side with five Test players. The tourists won ten of their 22 matches, and lost two, against Worcestershire and Kent. They did not manage to beat any of the top four sides in the Championship, though; they drew with Lancashire and Yorkshire (twice), lost to Kent and tied with Middlesex. Frank Mitchell, the South Africans' captain, also played first class cricket for Yorkshire during the season, which helped him score more than 1,000 first class runs in the season. 839 of those were made for South Africa;[2] Louis Tancred (1217)[3] and Maitland Hathorn[4] were the two players to make more than 1,000 runs for South Africa only. On the bowling side, pace bowler Johannes Kotze headed the attack, claiming 104 wickets in his 22 matches for South Africa.[5]

Overall first-class statistics

Leading batsmen

1904 English cricket season - leading batsmen
Name	Team(s)	Matches	Runs	Average	100s	50s
Tom Hayward	Players, South of England, Surrey	36	3170	54.65	11	11
C. B. Fry	Gentlemen, Gentlemen of England, Sussex	29	2824	70.60	10	6
George Herbert Hirst	North of England, Yorkshire	36	2501	54.36	9	10
Johnny Tyldesley	Lancashire, North of England	30	2439	62.53	8	9
David Denton	North of England, Players, Yorkshire	36	2088	40.15	3	15

Leading bowlers

1904 English cricket season - leading bowlers
Name	Team(s)	Matches	Balls bowled	Wickets taken	Average
J. T. Hearne	England XI, MCC, Middlesex, Players, South of England	32	6921	145	18.84
Colin Blythe	Kent, South of England	24	6146	138	19.60
George Herbert Hirst	North of England, Yorkshire	36	6198	132	21.09
Bernard Bosanquet	Gentlemen, MCC, Middlesex, I Zingari, South of England	27	4363	132	21.62
Wilfred Rhodes	North of England, Players, Yorkshire	36	7184	131	21.59

References

1. Yorkshire v Lancashire in 1904, from CricketArchive, retrieved 5 August 2006
2. Player Oracle Reveals Results, from CricketArchive, retrieved 5 August 2006
3. Player Oracle Reveals Results, from CricketArchive, retrieved 5 August 2006
4. Player Oracle Reveals Results, from CricketArchive, retrieved 5 August 2006
5. Player Oracle Reveals Results, from CricketArchive, retrieved 5 August 2006

Further reading

• H S Altham, A History of Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914), George Allen & Unwin, 1962
• Roy Webber, The Playfair Book of Cricket Records, Playfair Books, 1951
• Wisden Cricketers Almanack 1905

External links

• CricketArchive – England in 1904