1739 English Cricket Season

In the 1739 English cricket season, there were again very few match reports. The first Kent versus All-England games are a sign of very important matches to come.

The earliest known cricket picture was first displayed this year. It is an engraving called The Game of Cricket by Hubert-François Gravelot (1699 – 1773) and shows two groups of cherubic lads gathered around a batsman and a bowler. The wicket shown is the "low stool" shape, probably 2-foot (0.61 m) wide by 1-foot (0.30 m) tall, naturally with two stumps and a single bail. Gravelot helped to establish the French Rococo style in English publishing and was one of the most celebrated illustrators of the time. He worked in England 1732–1745, opening a drawing school on the Strand which had Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) among its pupils.

Read more about 1739 English Cricket Season:  Matches, First Mentions

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