1826 English cricket season
1826 was the 40th season of cricket in England since the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club. The revival of inter-county cricket gathered pace and William Clarke made his known debut.
Honours
- Most runs – Tom Marsden 227 @ 227.00
- Most wickets – William Lillywhite 27
Important matches
Events
- The Lord's pavilion, gutted by fire in July 1825, was rebuilt in time for MCC's annual dinner on Thursday 11 May.
- Inter-county cricket flourished again, mainly through the efforts of the Sussex county organisation based on the Midhurst club. Sussex played matches against Kent and a combined Hampshire/Surrey team.
- 24 to 26 July — Yorkshire's first great player Tom Marsden scored 227 for Sheffield and Leicester v Nottingham at the Darnall New Ground in Sheffield. A report said that Marsden batted over eight hours, approximately 4½ hours on the 25th and 3½ hours on the 26th.
- 5 May — a significant event that would in time accelerate the spread of cricket throughout England was the passage of an Act of Parliament that authorised creation of the Liverpool to Manchester Railway and effectively began the "railway boom".
- 31 December — death of John Small, the great Hambledon batsman