Marylebone Cricket Club

Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), former governing body of cricket, founded in London in 1787. The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) laid down the first set of laws for the game of cricket in 1788 and continued to act as the global governing body for the game until the late 20th century, a role now fulfilled by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The ICC continues to rely on the MCC to write new laws and interpret existing laws of cricket. The MCC headquarters are at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.

During the 18th century cricket grew in popularity in England. Cricket also started to become an elite sport, played by gentlemen’s clubs. In this backdrop, the earl of Winchilsea and a few of his friends, members of the White Conduit Club, asked one of their professional cricket players, Thomas Lord, to find them a private ground. In May 1787 Lord leased some land in present-day Dorset Square, where the first match was played between Middlesex and the White Conduit Club on May 21.

In 1788 the MCC established a Code of Laws for cricket, including, among other things, the length of the cricket pitch, the distance between the wickets, and methods to get a player out. The MCC continues to be the custodian of all cricket laws, although the ICC has taken over actual governance of cricket worldwide. In the 1870s the MCC also drew up the first laws of tennis.

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The original ground at Dorset Square (now sporting a memorial plaque) was used until 1810, when a rent increase forced Lord to move the ground to North Bank, at the north end of Lisson Grove. This new site was short-lived because of the construction of the Regent’s Canal. Lord then leased a new ground in St John’s Wood in 1814, which continues to be the home ground of the MCC. This ground, with a modern-day capacity of more than 30,000, is named Lord’s Cricket Ground after the person who set it up. The original pavilion housing the club’s artifacts was destroyed in a fire in 1825 but was rebuilt. Over the coming century, the ground and the club would evolve into being the center of the cricket world.

A power struggle arose between the MCC and the County of Surrey in 1862. A dispute over Kent bowler Edgar Willsher’s bowling action led to the MCC modifying the law on bowling actions, legalizing Willsher’s bowling, and in essence starting the era of overarm bowling. In 1877 they convinced the County of Middlesex to adopt Lord’s as its county ground, an arrangement that continues to this day.

In 1877 the MCC sent a cricket team captained by James Lillywhite, Jr., to Australia in what was technically a private tour but is now recorded as the first set of Test matches played between England and Australia. MCC continued to privately arrange matches between England and Australia, including the 1882 Test at the Oval cricket ground, which gave rise to the Ashes rivalry between the two countries. In 1903 the MCC started taking responsibility for England’s tours in an official capacity.

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At the start of the 20th century, the Board of Control for Test Matches, the Advisory County Cricket Committee, and the Imperial Cricket Conference were established to manage an increase in both domestic and international cricket. The Imperial Cricket Conference comprised England, Australia, and South Africa and was set up with the goal of organizing a Test Tri-Series between these nations in 1912. In 1965 it was renamed the International Cricket Conference, and more countries joined the group. In 1989 it was again renamed, to its current name, the International Cricket Council, and the tradition of the MCC president automatically becoming the chairman of the ICC was abolished. The ICC continued to have its offices at Lord’s until 2005, when it moved to Dubai, signifying the shift in global cricket power from England to South Asia.

Since 1821 there have been more than 150 presidents of the MCC (no records survive prior to this period because of the 1825 fire). Lord Strathavon served as the first president in 1821. Prince Philip, the duke of Edinburgh, served as club president in 1974, and in 2019 retired Sri Lankan cricketer Kumar Sangakkara became the first non-British person to become club president. Since October 2023 the president of the MCC has been commentator and former Hampshire cricket captain Mark Nicholas.

The MCC has about 18,000 full members and some 5,000 associate members, who own the ground and MCC’s assets and govern MCC affairs. The MCC infamously did not allow female membership until 1999, remaining a gentlemen-only club for more than 200 years. Queen Elizabeth II, a patron of the MCC, was the only woman allowed to enter the pavilion area during play. The former England cricketer Rachael Heyhoe Flint led efforts for the inclusion of women. In 1996 former cricketer Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, a supporter of women’s membership, took on the presidency and started a campaign to vote for change. This bore fruit when women were admitted as members for the first time. In 2021 former England cricketer Clare Connor became the first woman president of the MCC when she took over from Sangakkara.

The MCC sports distinctive yellow and red club colors (called “egg and bacon”). The colors are believed to be a personal thank you to William Nicholson, an MCC member, who aided in the purchase of Lords Ground. Red and yellow were the colors of Nicholson’s eponymous gin company.

Since 2001 the MCC has organized the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture at Lord’s, named after the late England cricketer Lord Colin Cowdrey. The Cowdrey Lecture, now an annual event, features a talk given by a current or former cricketer. A notable exception was the South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who in 2008 spoke about racism and sports and the impact of sports on politics.