\n James Lillywhite jnr was born in West Hampnett on February 23, 1842, and died in Chichester, on October 25, 1929, at the age of 87.\n<\/p>\n
\n A pioneering figure in the early years of international cricket, he led the England team in the very first Test match ever played.\n<\/p>\n
\n According to the\u00a0Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack,\u00a0Mr Lillywhite was a slow left-arm bowler known for his high, accurate delivery. He was also a hard-hitting lower-order batsman and a reliable fielder. He came from a notable cricketing family with five close relatives who also played for Sussex.\n<\/p>\n
\n The English cricket team in 1876 before its tour of Australia, with Captain Lillywhite in the centre (Image: Wikimedia)\n<\/p>\n
\n Between 1862 and 1881, he played in every game Sussex contested. He toured Australia six times, captaining England in the historic 1876-77 tour.\n<\/p>\n
\n There had been previous teams to tour the Antipodes, but not until March 1877 did the Australians regard themselves as strong enough to engage an English eleven on level terms.\n<\/p>\n
\n Australia won the first Test by 45 runs, but in the return match played soon afterwards, England won by four wickets.\n<\/p>\n
\n Of the 22 men who played in that historic game, only three were alive at the time of Mr Lillywhite’s death and all were in Australia: Charles Bannerman, J. McCarthy Blackham, and Tom Garrett.\n<\/p>\n
\n James’ uncle William Lillywhite, who was also a famous cricketer (Image: Wikimedia)\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Lillywhite\u2019s uncle, William Lillywhite, known as “The Nonpareil,” a renowned cricketer himself, was also born in West Hampnett and had a long career playing for Sussex.\n<\/p>\n
\n James Lillywhite jnr. made his debut at Lord\u2019s in June 1862 in a match between Sussex and the Marylebone Cricket Club, where he took 14 wickets for 57 runs – including nine wickets for 29 runs in the second innings.\n<\/p>\n
\n He bowled unchanged through an entire match 12 times for Sussex.\n<\/p>\n
\n A painting of a match held at The Level in Brighton in 1849, when it was a cricket ground (Image: Wikimedia)\n<\/p>\n
\n Three of those occasions came in consecutive games in 1873 – against Surrey at The Oval, Kent at Lord\u2019s, and Gloucestershire at Brighton.\n<\/p>\n
\n In other notable matches, he bowled without a change for the Players of the South against the Gentlemen of the South at Southampton in 1865, and for South against North at Liverpool in 1872.\n<\/p>\n
\n James Lillywhite jnr., the first man to captain England in a test match (Image: Wikimedia)\n<\/p>\n
\n During his early tours of Australia, he produced outstanding bowling figures.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 1873-74, he took 18 wickets for 72 runs against New South Wales and Victoria at Sydney, and 12 for 61 against Victoria at Melbourne.\n<\/p>\n
\n Three seasons later, he claimed nine wickets for 23 runs against South Australia at Adelaide.\n<\/p>\n
\n His best seasons came in 1872 and 1873, when he took 94 and 101 wickets respectively, at an average of 13 runs each.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 1876, he claimed 91 wickets at 14 runs each.\n<\/p>\n
\n Lords, known as the Home of Cricket, where Lillywhite jnr. made his debut (Image: Wikimedia)\n<\/p>\n
\n A versatile player, Mr Lillywhite also made his mark as a batsman.\n<\/p>\n
\n He scored two centuries for Sussex – 105 against Hampshire at Brighton in 1864, and an unbeaten 126 against Middlesex at the Old Cattle Market Ground in Islington.\n<\/p>\n
\n He played his first match for Sussex in 1862 and his last against Yorkshire in 1883, taking 917 wickets for the county at an average of 14.75.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Lillywhite also visited the United States and Canada in 1868.\n<\/p>\n
\n The legendary WG Grace, who James Lillywhite played under (Image: Wikimedia)\n<\/p>\n
\n His visits to Australia began in 1873-74 as a member of the side led by the legendary W.G. Grace.\n<\/p>\n
\n He returned as captain in 1876-77 and made four subsequent tours.\n<\/p>\n
\n Later in his career, he focused on the business side of these tours, partnering with Alfred Shaw and Arthur Shrewsbury.\n<\/p>\n
\n He served as secretary of the United South of England XI for some years and later established a reputation as a more than capable umpire.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Australian team of 1899, who Lillywhite jnr. played against (Image: Wikimedia)\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Lillywhite benefited from two testimonial matches during his career.\n<\/p>\n
\n The first, held in Brighton in 1881, featured a dramatic match in which both the Players and the Gentlemen scored 204 runs in their first innings.\n<\/p>\n
\n He took 35 wickets in Gentlemen v Players matches at an average of 20.\n<\/p>\n
\n His second benefit match was North v South at Chichester in 1889.\n<\/p>\n
\n He also arranged the fixture lists for the first two Australian teams to tour England in 1878 and 1880.\n<\/p>\n
\n He died in Chichester, the last English survivor of the first Test match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Lillywhite jnr was born in West Hampnett on February 23, 1842, and died in Chichester, on October…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-343005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}