1739 English cricket season

The 1739 cricket season was the 142nd in England since the earliest known definite reference to cricket in January 1597 (i.e., Old Style – 1598 New Style). Details have survived of seven important matches. The growth of cricket is evident in the creation of teams representing the Rest of England and the huge public interest in them, a crowd of over 10,000 assembling for one match. The "all England" teams were formed to take on Kent which, as in previous seasons, had the game's strongest county team. Cricket joined the art world in 1739, an engraving called Youth Playing Cricket being the earliest known cricket subject on public display.

The following matches are classified as important:

The report does not state the venue of this match but does confirm the rematch to be played at the Artillery Ground on the 27th. This is the first reference to the Lingfield club which had a noted team in the 18th century.

No post-match report was found. The announcement is contained in the report of the previous match and said that "several large bets are depending".

Referenced in the report of the return match two weeks later (see below).

This is the earliest known instance of a non-international England cricket team, loosely termed "all-England" or, more accurately, the Rest of England. The match report defines the all-England concept very well by saying that the match was billed as between "eleven gentlemen of that county (i.e., Kent) and eleven gentlemen from any part of England, exclusive of Kent". An all-England team is, in effect, the rest of England outside its opponents so, in this case, players resident in Kent were ineligible for selection. Kent, which had a very strong team in this period and was described as "the Unconquerable County", won by "a very few notches".

The London & Country Journal dated Tuesday, 24 July, reported on the second of these two matches but made references to the previous one on Thursday, 5 July. It seems that Kingston & Moulsey won the first game because of "the Londoners turning out three bad men who played on Moulsey Hurst". Kingston & Moulsey won the second game by three runs despite losing "five of their best hands" from the earlier match. London replaced the "three bad men" with Lord John Sackville, Mr Dunn and Mr Boarer (sic) who were described as "three very good gamesters".

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