William Sawyer (cricketer)

In June 1736, there was a major single wicket match on Kennington Common and the report names Wakeland and George Oldner of London Cricket Club playing together against two "famous" Richmond players who are "esteemed the best two in England". Unfortunately the esteemed pair are not named, though one of them suffered serious facial injuries in this game when the ball came off his bat and hit his nose. The report rails against "human brutes" who insisted he should play on despite his injuries, the money they had staked being of much greater importance to them.[2] It is believed that one of the Richmond players was William Sawyer, who was certainly active in the 1730s and who, in 1743, was acclaimed by name as "one of the best six players in England".

Sawyer is first definitely mentioned in a contemporary report of a celebrated single wicket "threes" game played at the Artillery Ground on 11 July 1743. The Daily Advertiser declared that the six players involved were the "best in England". They were William Hodsoll (Dartford), Val Romney (Sevenoaks) and John Cutbush (Maidstone) (replacing Ridgeway of Sussex) who played as Three of Kent; and Richard Newland (Slindon), John Bryant (Bromley) and Sawyer, who played as Three of All-England.[1] Kent won by 2 runs. The London Evening Post says the crowd was computed to be 10,000. A return match was arranged at Sevenoaks Vine on Wed 27 July but it did not come off.[1]

On 25 July 1743, Sawyer played as a given man for London against Addington at the Artillery Ground, but Addington won by an innings and 4 runs having scored 110 while London could only manage 32 and 74.[1]

In 1744, Sawyer played in both of the matches from which scorecards have survived. When London met Slindon at the Artillery Ground on 2 June, Sawyer was in the London team, possibly batting third, and scored 4 in each innings as Slindon won by 55 runs.[3] On 18 June, he was a given man in the Kent team that played All-England at the Artillery Ground, scoring 0 and 5 as Kent won a low-scoring game by 1 wicket.[4]

Sawyer's last known appearance was on 31 August 1747, when he played in a first-class match for All-England v Kent at the Artillery Ground. The result is unknown but the match had been postponed earlier in the season because of a parliamentary election.[1]

• F S Ashley-Cooper, At the Sign of the Wicket: Cricket 1742–1751, Cricket Magazine, 1900
• Arthur Haygarth, Scores & Biographies, Volume 1 (1744–1826), Lillywhite, 1862
• Timothy J McCann, Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century, Sussex Record Society, 2004
• H T Waghorn, Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730–1773), Blackwood, 1899