Oxford University Cricket Club (now closely linked to the Oxford MCC Universities (MCCU) team which incorporates Oxford Brookes University, but retaining its independence) is a first-class cricket team, representing the University of Oxford. It plays its home games at the University Parks in Oxford, England. For Oxford's first-class fixtures other than those against Cambridge University they play as Oxford MCCU (known as Oxford Universities Centre of Cricketing Excellence (UCCE) prior to the 2010 season).
Cricketers who have competed in the first-class four day Varsity Match against Cambridge University are eligible for an Oxford Blue.
The earliest reference to cricket at Oxford University is the year 1729; no less an authority than Dr Samuel Johnson was a student and later stated that he played cricket there.
Oxford University made its first class debut in 1827 when it played Cambridge University Cricket Club in the first ever University Match, which is the oldest 1st Class Fixture in the world.
Famous quotes containing the words oxford, university, cricket and/or club:
“The greatest gift that Oxford gives her sons is, I truly believe, a genial irreverence toward learning, and from that irreverence love may spring.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)
“Cold an old predicament of the breath:
Adroit, the shapely prefaces complete,
Accept the university of death.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“Women ... are completely alone, though they were born and bred upon this soil, as if they belonged to another class in creation.”
—“Jennie June” Croly 1829–1901, U.S. founder of the woman’s club movement, journalist, author, editor. F, Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly Mirror of Fashions, pp. 363-4 (December 1870)