Cricket 1882

“ T o g e t h e r j o i n e d i n C r i c k e t ’s m a n l y t o i l . ”— Byron . Registered for Transmission Abroad, THUKSDAY, AUGUST 17, 1882. p r i c e 2d. F R E D E R IC K R O B E R T S P O F F O R T H . R oom —and plenty of it — for the demon bowler. No igure in the group of Australian players now visit- ug England is more familiar to English cricketers taan that of the distinguished worthy whose extra- >rdinary performances with the ball have gained for him the Australian sobriquet “ the Demon.” By descent he might almost claim to be a Yorkshireman, but ill his own associations are with the Monies, and New South Wales is fully entitled to the double distinction of both •Usbirth and education. He was born at Balmain, near Sydney, on the 9th of September, 1855, so that he is now close }athe completion of his twenty-seventh fear. He was educated at Eglinton college, in Sydney, and the first trace 'hat we have of him as a cricketer was in 'onnection with the Newtown Club of hat city during the season of 1871-2. was then only in his seventeenth year, jut he migrated soon afterwards to the ” bert Club, still one of the foremost ticket societies in New South Wales, lnd it was with that team that he first filled any great notoriety. At that ln*e he was as prominent as a batsman 13 abowler, but he soon began to make usmark in the bowling department, and ubis first match of any importance for South Wales, against Mr. W. G. "ace’s team at Sydney in January, 1874, took three wickets for fourteen runs. ,e was not chosen as one of the com- |lned team to meet the Englishmen uring that tour, but the next season uud his fame fairly established, and it Taschiefly owing to his elfective bowling athe Inter-colonial of December, 1874, x Melbourne, that New South Wales .as able to beat Victoria for the first lme for seven years. We have hardly pace for a detailed enumeration- of his rin°ipal Colonial exploits but it is orthy of remark that he has never ayed in a losing Inter-colonial match, gainst Lillywhite’s English team in 0 ; ke was particularly successful as a bowler, Jinh h k® did not play at Melbourne with the .bined eleven of Australia he had a fair analysis the tour, taking twenty wickets at an aver- *e83 seventeen runs. His reputation I havebeen thoroughly acknowledged by this time for 33 and 19 that he made a name. In the first innings he bowled twenty-three balls for four runs and six wickets—three of them, if our memory does not fail us, those of Flowers, G. Hearne, and A. Shaw, with successive balls. This form he fully confirmed a week later at the Oval when he took eight out of ten wickets in Surrey’s first innings, and it is not too much to say that he fairly established a “ funk” from which even some of our most vigorous hitters never recovered. During that tour he was credited with as many as 110 wickets at an average of under 10 £ runs, besides having a very re­ spectable batting average of 13 for 28 innings. During his second visit to England with the team of 1880, he was even more successful, and he had to bear the- whole brunt of the bowling until almost the end of a very busy campaign. Unfortunately, and to his intense disap­ pointment, a severe injury to his hand prevented him helping his side on the one occasion when they most wanted his services. Whether he would have turned the scale in the memorable match when England beat Australia will be a matter of opinion, but in proof of tho really wonderful character of his bowling during that tour it may be stated that ho took as many as 391 English wickets at an average of only a trifle over five runs an extraordinary performance. Last season a fall from his horse injured his arm, and in addition he was altogether out of practice. Owing to being engaged in squatting pursuits some hundreds of miles from Sydney he hardly figured at all in Australian cricket, and then not until the close of the season. He was not one of the combined team which defeated Shaw’s eleven in Melbourne, though he figured in tho later match at Sydney, when the Englishmen scored so heavily, and he also helped New South Wales in the second Inter-colonial when Victoria scored 315 and 322 against one innings of 775. It was generally fancied in England that his bowling had lost some of its sting, but though he began rather badly from evident want of practice after tlie earlier matcnes he showed that there wa? much of the old “ devil” left in his delivery, and in some matches, notably against Lancashire, Yorkshire and Derby­ shire, he was very effective. As a bowler, when in though, for he was one of Gregory’s eleven which visited England in 1878. It was before his arrival here that he had earned the cognomen of “ the demon bowler,” and it is hardly necessary for us to recal how thoroughly he justified the appellation by the deadly nature of his deliveries on English grounds. In the first match against Notts he was compara­ tively unsuccessful, being apparently unable to get a foothold of the heavy ground. It was in the memorable contest with the Marylebone Club and Ground when Boyle and he together succeeded in getting rid of an exceedingly strong batting side