Slindon Cricket Club

Slindon Cricket Club was famous in the middle part of the 18th century when it claimed to have the best team in England. It was located at Slindon, a village in the Arun district of Sussex.

Cricket in the 18th century was funded by gambling interests and some of the wealthier gamblers, acting as patrons, formed whole teams that were representative of several parishes and even of counties. Such a team was "poor little Slyndon (sic) against almost your whole county of Surrey". That quote is taken from a letter written by Slindon's patron, Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond (1701 - 1750) in the 1741 English cricket season. Playing at Merrow Down near Guildford on 1 September, Slindon had just beaten Surrey "almost in one innings".

The Duke of Richmond was the greatest of the sport's early patrons and he did an enormous service to the development of the sport in his native Sussex. He had been active as a player and patron since the 1720s and he lent his benevolence to the little woodland club near Arundel in the late 1730s when he became aware that its residents included three talented brothers, one of whom was showing signs of greatness, and a number of other decent players.

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players each on a field at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard-long pitch. The game is played by 120 million players in many countries, making it the world's second most popular sport. Each team takes its turn to bat, attempting to score runs, while the other team fields. Each turn is known as an innings (used for both singular and plural).

The bowler delivers the ball to the batsman who attempts to hit the ball with his bat away from the fielders so he can run to the other end of the pitch and score a run. Each batsman continues batting until he is out. The batting team continues batting until ten batsmen are out, or a specified number of overs of six balls have been bowled, at which point the teams switch roles and the fielding team comes in to bat.

In professional cricket, the length of a game ranges from 20 overs (T20) per side to Test cricket played over five days. The Laws of Cricket are maintained by the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) with additional Standard Playing Conditions for Test matches and One Day Internationals.

Slindon

Coordinates: 50°52′03″N 0°38′07″W / 50.86739°N 0.63515°W / 50.86739; -0.63515

Slindon is a mostly rural village and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England, containing a developed nucleus amid woodland. Much of Slindon's woodland belongs to the National Trust on the southern edge of the escarpment of the South Downs National Park. Slindon is centred 6 miles (9.7 km) north-east of Chichester.

History

The village is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Eslindone", the name having the probable meaning in Old English of "sloping hill".

St Mary's 12th-century parish church contains a memorial to Stephen Langton (c1150–1228), the Archbishop of Canterbury who attended the signing of Magna Carta. In the Middle Ages Slindon House (now Slindon College) was the site of one of the Archbishop's residences. In 1330 Thomas de Natindon, who was a legal representative of the Pope, was sent there to serve a writ on the archbishop. His party were not well received by the archbishop's servants who stripped and bound them, then threw cold water over them, apparently with the archbishop's consent. Natindon escaped revenge and was pursued over the hills to Petworth where he was caught and held in prison for three days.