Recalling The Famous Barn Door Match Of 1837

Ardent cricket enthusiasts are bound to notice the name Mr. Thomas Lords, the moment they peep into 19th-century cricket history. He was the owner of the present day Lord's cricket ground- The Home of Cricket.

However, there are only few people who have heard the name of Mr. William Ward - the director of the bank of England and an MP of the city of London (1826-31). Coincidentally, in spite of the ownership of Mr. Thomas, Lords Cricket Ground would have ceased to exist today, had Mr. William not come into the picture, in 1825.

However shocking and jaw-dropping it may sound today, back in 1825, Mr. Lords was actually negotiating a deal to convert the Home of Cricket into a building estate. This is exactly when, Mr.Ward, stepped into the situation and convinced Mr. Thomas to stall the building project. William bought the lease of the ground from him for 5000 pounds. Thank god, for Mr. Ward, the home of cricket stands even today with all its magnificence, grandeur, historical significance, and its aura.

Players vs Gentlemen- The Series of One-Sided Matches

The time frame in focus here dates back to the second decade of the 19th century and the first international cricket match is still around 50 years away. In order to protect the game of cricket from being faded away into the oblivion, the English came up with a unique concept of playing a yearly cricket match.

This annual cricket match, that begun somewhere around the late 1820s, comprised of 2 teams the Gentlemen (amateurs) and the Players (professionals).As is evident from the names of the teams, the amateurs were usually no match for the professional cricket players, and hence there were various measures taken over the years, to make this match more of a hard-fought competition.

The measures included fielding more players for the Gentlemen's team or in certain cases, the Players' team being made to defend larger wickets than their counterparts. However, all these efforts stood wasted, as barring one or two occasions. the Players' team emerged victorious in all such matches.

1837- The Barn Door Match

In 1837, the responsibility to organize the annual cricket match fell on Mr. William Ward, who himself was a regular county cricketer in the English circuit till 1820. Citing the mismatch in standards between the Players' team and the Gentlemen's team, Ward came up with a stupendous idea - to bring both the teams to the same standard.

In the 1837 version of the match, the Gentlemen defended stumps of normal size: that is, 27 inches by 8 inches, whereas the Players defended 4 stumps that had dimensions of 36 inches by 12 inches. So, effectively, the Players were defending stumps of the area of 432 sq inches, which was double the area of the stumps (216 sq inches), that the Gentlemen were defending.

While there had been ploys to render advantage to the Gentlemen's team in the past, such an outrageous idea was never even thought of. Mr. William Ward received criticism from all quarters for taking such an outlandish decision, that brought down the game of cricket to the level of comedy.

However, acting as a spoilsport to all the effort from Ward, the Players' won the match, quite convincingly by an innings and 10 runs. The advantage offered to the amateur bowlers, by the increased size of the wickets, could not be exploited by their batsmen as they fell like nine pins in front of Mr. Lilywhite, the leading bowler of the Players' team, who ended the match with 13 wickets to his tally.

Ward himself played the match for the Gentlemen's team and had to return with a meager tally of 2 runs in each innings. Thus, the amateurs were once again no match for the professional players and Mr. Ward's plans of balancing both sides failed miserably.

The match is famously called the Barn Door match because of the huge size of stumps used, that resembled almost a "Barn Door". Alternatively, this match is also known as "Ward's Folly" because of the failure of Mr. Ward to create a competition out of the game, in spite of using abhorrent measures to do so.

Regardless of the fact, this match remains the only recorded cricket match, in the history of the game, where one of the teams defended stumps double the area of its opponent and still emerged victorious!