Cricket 1882

C r ic k e t ; A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. MAY 10, 18£2. C R ICK E T F IF T Y Y E A R S AGO T he new cricket season will probably begin with a scandal, and the only comfort is that the scandal is the result of Australian, not of English, manners. In Australia large suras are betted on matches, as used to be the case in England sixty years ago. Indeed bookmakers seem to be among the chief jiatrons of the game, as is, perhaps, not unnatural where the line between gentlemen and professionals is almost invisible to the naked English eye. The Australians are excellent cricketers—our equals, though (as Shaw’s and Shrewsbury’s tour seems to demonstrate) not our masters. But the colony does not possess the class of men from whom our Hornbvs, Webbes, and Harrises are drawn, the class of gentlemen of leisure who can afford to give time and trouble to organising the pastime, aud keeping up its moral and social tone. Thougb few of the great Australian cricketers consider them­ selves professionals, they all make a pecuniary speculation of their English tours, and thus few of them can regard cricket in the disinterested English manner. Cricket, therefore, in the colony is like what amateur athletic sports and amateur rowing would be in England, if University running and boating men added to their income by their strength and skill. The game is semi-professioual, and incurs the scandals which are common in professional run­ ning and rowing, aud which were common in the Ring, when there was a Ring. If the letters which have reached England lately do not contain false information, the Australian bookmakers succeeded in bribing two English professionals to sell a match, and were only frustrated by the honourable conduct of a third man, who refused to be bought, aud disclosed the conspiracy. The sums for which the player3 were ready to sell their faith were, it is reported, very large; so large, that we suppose all the bets made on all the English cricket of the whole year would not cover them. Thus it seems that betting on cricket-matches in Australia is very prevalent, and we can only rejoice that the practice is nearly unknown at home. The fact probably is that the colonists have that pro­ vincial esprit (le corps which only cares for the result of a match. One colony, or one town, sets its heart 011 beating another, and all are excessively anxious to beat strangers. Consequently men bet highly on that which interests them deeply. At home we want to see good cricket, and are not overwhelmed with mortification when we lose, or puffed up with pride when we win. We play for play’s sake far more than for victory; and it is only at University matches, when local patriotism is interested, that a few sovereigns change hands. The result is that it is worth no man’s while to buy or se'l a match; and we may trust that the colonial vice will never take firm root at Lord’s or at the Oval. What cricket is to-day we all know ; its chief fault is that there is too much of it, and that too many young fellows barter their most valuable time for the sake of the game. What cricket was fifty years ago, and many years before that, we learn from a small book—now, we presume rather rare— which has just come into our hands. The “ Young cricketer's Tutor,” comprising full directions for playing the elegant and manly Game of Cricket. By John Nyren, a Player in the celebrated Old Ham- bledon Club and iu the Marylebone Club. To which is added •The Cricketers of My Time; or, Recol­ lections of the most Famous Old Players.’ By the same Author. The whole Collected and Edited by Charles Cowden Clarke,” is a little book with a very big title. It was published in 1833, by Effingham Wilson, who just at that very time brought ont another little book by a very young man, the Poems of Alfred Tennyson. “ Old Nyren” was, it is said, the father of the ancient Hambledon Club, which played on Broad Halfpenny and later on Windmill Down, near Hambledon, in Hamp­ shire. The son of “ Old Nyren” wrote “ The Y'oung Cricketer's Tutor,” a tract containing gossip and pleasant old “ cricket shop,” with many hints on play. The admirable cricketing writer, Mr. Gale* is apt to undertake in a pious spirit, to demonstrate that our ancestors were as good men with bat and ball as the players of this generation; but we seriously think that Nyren’s evidence scarcely proves his point. Nyren was a great opponent of the modern innovation of “ throwing the ball,” by which, we presume, he meant round- hand bowling. Yet Nyren was all for “ a high delivery,” by which he appears to have meant a delivery in which the ball is sent out, as it were, from under the arm pit. “ If the young practi­ tioner have once gained a good, high delivery, let him never run the risk of losing it, for in this department of the game it is the greatest gift he can possess.” This warning is given to young bowlers who want to take Lambert’s advice, and “ give a twist to their balls.” Nyren says it is a thousand to one that this endeavoar will spoil their bowling, and in Lambert’s own bowling he “ never could perceive any twist, unless indeed the ground were in his favour.” The old bowling, then, must, as a rule, have been quite plain, whereas most modern bowlers more or less nearly approach Mr. A. G. Steel’s skill in twisting the ball from both sides of the wicket. After thus exposing the simplicity of an older day, Nyren calmly exposes its low level of morality. “ In pitching the wickets much responsibility lies upon the bowler. The chief art is to choose a situation that will suit your own style of bowling, and at the same time prove disad­ vantageous to your adversaries; as these two points, however, can be but rarely accomplished, you can, at all events, pitch the wickets in such a manner as to benefit yourself.” The chief art indeed! And then the excellent Nyren describes Old Lumpy’s way. “ He would invariably choose the ground where his balls would shoot,” yet “ he had 110 trick about him, but was as plain as a pikestaff in all his dealings.” How would Mr. Gale defend this eccen­ tric morality, unless he urges that in home and home matches the bowlers of both sides had chances of laying pitfalls for their opponents, and so no unfair advantage was taken. This very Lumpy was beaten with ridiculous ease at single wicket by “ a long raw-boned devil of a countryman,” who, “ having an arm as long as a hop pole, reached in at Lumpy’s balls, and slashed and thrashed away, hitting his balls all over the field, and always up in the air,” and Lumpy was not a man who bowled for catches. We don’t think fnuch of Lumpy. Harris, on the other hand, ‘ ‘ would choose a rising ground to pitch a ball against,” and he had “ a manly con­ tempt of every action that bore the character of meanness.” And this is so far true that Harris would “ choose the ground to suit his fellow bowler as ■wellas himself,” whereas “ Lumpy thought only of himself in choosing his ground.” It does not ap­ peared to have occurred to the cunning but feeble mind of Lumpy that he might have to change ends in the course of the match; or was that arrange­ ment forbidden ? Again, look at Lambert. Nyren has just said that his bowling had no twist; this Lambert’s bowling did twist; so, we presume, there were two Lamberts. Now what astonished Nyren was that Lambert’s bowling had a break back; twisted “ not like that of the generality of right- handed bowlers, but just the reverse way, that is, if bowling to a right-handed hitter, his ball would twist from the off-stump into the leg.” This ‘ ‘ cursed twist,” as Nyren calls it, ‘ ‘ was the only virtue he had as a cricketer.” Lambert acquired his cursed twist “ when he was tending his father’s sheep.” He would set up a hurdle or two, and bowl away for hours together.” Had shepherd Paris employed his leisure in this laudable way, Troy might still be standing and the tall house of Priam. So stupid was this shepherd swain Lam­ bert, that it never occurred to him to pitch his balls a little to the off till the elder Nyren, w'ith infinite pains, proved to him that there lay his chance. Once he gave the Duke of Dorset a straight ball, which broke in just a coat of varnish off the leg- stump. “ Ah ! it was tedious near you, sir,” cried Lambert. Now, what would Nyren, or Lambert, or his Grace of Dorset have thought of bowling like Peate’s or Alfred Shaw’s ? They would have thought the bowler had a familiar spirit, which alone could produce such “ cursed twists” fromboth sides of the wicket. Clearly the bowling of Nyren’s day had not our modern artfulness, but was “ old and plain.” Nyren seems to have had no idea at all of cutting sharp behind the wicket—one of the prettiest of strokes. But he was opposed to the system of slogging high into the air. “ I never wish to see the ball mount,” he says; and Mr. Thornton or Mr. Fowler would have given Old Nyren little pleasure. High hitting, like high in­ terest, means bad security. In Nyren’s time going in to slow bowling was a novelty. Probably this is the best mole of playing underhand slows, when the player can depend on his eye and nerve; but Suter of the Hambledon Club, was “ the first player that I remember to have broken through the old rule of standing firm at the popping-crease for alength bill.” Nyren knew only four player3 who did so with success. As to the wicket-keeper, Nyren would have him ‘ ‘ remove a little backward from the wicket,” in which he would hardly get Mr. Alfred Lyttleton to agree with him. Suter aud Hammond never put down the wicket without a chance of putting out the batsmen. Young University wicket­ keepers are apt to be less cautious and self-re­ strained than Suter and Hammond. Nyren’s theory of point was excellent, and it is well illustrated now by the conduct of Mr. E. M. Grace at that important position. “ Long field to the Hip” stood what wo now call “ square” sometimes to save one, some­ times two runs. Save that Nyren recommends long field “ to drop on one knee, with both hands before him” when fielding a hard hit, his ideas on this topic are excellent, and can never be superanuated. But Nyren cannot long keep off the grievous topic of “ throwing,” that is, of round-hand bowling. “ The indifferent batsman possesses” against throw­ ing “ as fair a chance as the most refined player,” owing to “ the random manner of delivering tbe ball.” Nothing can be less “ random” than modern bowling; but Nyren thought throwing would make play like Aylward’s, Beldham’s, and Lord Frederick Beauclerc’s for ever impossible. Nyren thought throwing “ would shorten the game”—another pro­ phecy unfulfilled. And he ended with averring that “ theelegant and scientific game of cricket wid decline into a mere exhibition of rough, coarse horse-play.” Nyren was wrong; but the question of “ throwing” is still apt to be raised, and it is hard, indeed, to decide whether some modern bowlers do or do not throw. Still, even in Nyren’s days of underhand, it was just as difficult to pro­ nounce whether a man was bowling or “ jerking.” And, except in Australia, we know nothing of “ the modern politics of crowing.—Saturday Review. E N G L ISH & A U S T R A L IA N CR ICKET . T he following remarks by 1Point,’ a contributor to the South Australian Register, will be read with interest, representing as they do an Australian’s views of the situation. Every one interested in the noble game knows, aud if the fact needed confirmation we have it from the English team now in Australia, that cricket ill Australia has made rapid strides during the past few years. And as Shaw’s All-England Eleven, which has had such a successful tour in the colonies, and the third Australian Eleven are about to leavo for England, where, no doubt, they will “ fight their battles o’er again,” it may be a fitting time to take a hasty glance at the All-England Eleven’s performances in their first-class matches, and from them gauge an opinion as to the relative merits of English and Australian players. Taking the first- class matches to be one against Sydney, two each against Victoria, the Combined team aud the Aus­ tralian Eleven, and another against South Austra­ lia, we find that the Englishmen were victorious both times over Victoria, and in their one contest with Sydney, that they lost to the second Combined team, and once to the Australian Eleven, and that the other two engagements were drawn. The team has well borne out its reputation as the best English Eleven that has ever visited Australia, and for the whole tour, so far, it has the very fine record of ten