Revolutionary events that were taking place across the English Channel during that summer may have had a far wider historical significance, but on 26 June 1789 one of the most symbolic matches in the history of cricket took place in what was to become Dorset Square, London. It was on this day that an eleven representing the Hambledon club took the field on the first of only two recorded occasions at Thomas Lord's ground, the home of the recently formed Marylebone Cricket Club.

This brief association between what had been the game's most influential institution until this point and the organisation which was soon to take its place clearly marks a watershed in the history of cricket. But although the game's formative period of development was drawing to a close, this match offers a profound illustration of cricket's accelerated growth during the eighteenth century and the distinctive dynamics that shaped it. Whilst the significance it later assumed was clearly not yet apparent, the match was still a major event. Cricket had been at the forefront of a thriving commercial leisure culture in London for the previous forty or so years and any major contest such as this one received a considerable level of publicity. Both teams were also assembled by members of the aristocracy, which reflected how far the predominance of the social elite at cricket's highest level had influenced the game's development. Their growing involvement resulted in a version of its laws first being codified in 1744 and published in 1752.