Most scoring before 1776 involved cutting notches on tally sticks
In 2008 a new scoreboard was installed at Lord’s, one which, as the press release explained, had ‘three new permanent, state-of-the-art colour LED replay screens… each made of 88 modules that have been specially imported from Hong Kong’.
What was more, bragged the press release, ‘the new screens are also more environmentally friendly, using less energy to power them. Around one-third of the power is required for all three new LED screens compared to the energy used by the pair of old bulb-based scoreboards.’
It was at Lord’s where cricket’s first scoreboard was installed, way back in 1846, when W.G. Grace was but a glint in his father’s eye. Before then, all but the most keen-eyed spectators were ignorant of the state of the game – except when the scores were level, for then the two scorers stood up to indicate the fact.
Scorers, on the other hand, had been around for years. The earliest known scorecards were printed by a man called Pratt in 1776, scorer to the Sevenoaks Vine Club in Kent, but it took many years for his invention to catch on. Most scoring at this time was still done by men sitting on vantage points cutting ‘notches’ (runs) on tally sticks, as it had been for years. In 1706 William Goldwyn wrote a couplet about such an event:
Two trusted friends squat on the rising floor
To notch with knives on sticks, the mounting score.
The introduction of the scoreboard, however, revolutionised scoring. Now everyone could keep track of the day’s play, and the first to fully exploit this enthusiasm for scoring was Fred Lillywhite of the famous cricketing family. In 1848 he used a portable printing press at grounds to print updated scorecards. So attached to scoring was Lillywhite that, when he toured North America with George Parr’s side in 1859 (see chapter 17), he took ‘his precious scoring-booth on wheels’ with him and became a ‘little querulous’ with the way it was handled by the shipping company on the voyage across the Atlantic.
A year before that tour, in 1858, the Kennington Oval had introduced the first mobile scorebox, ‘a house on rollers with figures for telegraphing on each side’. On the other side of the world, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a further innovation was unveiled in 1881 when a scoreboard appeared at the western end of the ground which gave the batsman’s name and how he was out.
Most scoring before 1776 involved cutting notches on tally sticks
Scoreboards at the main international stadiums today, like the one at Lord’s, show colour action replays as well as keeping punters up to date with the score. When the refurbished Sydney Cricket Ground is unveiled in 2013 it will include an eye-boggling 3,000-square-foot video screen doubling as a scoreboard. ‘The bigger and improved screen will provide even more enjoyment for fans with replays… plus full match scoring,’ said an SCG spokesman. ‘Modern day spectators the world over demand a large, high-resolution video screen to enhance their match day experience.’