Cricket 1882

MAY 17, 1882. C E l C K E T ; A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 15 slow bowler. J. Whitelaw, slow bowler, and left hand bat. L. Sanderson, a fair wicket-keeper, can bowl a little, and a fair bat. W. Sanderson, fast, left bowler. C. D. Buxton, good steady bat though rather weak. H.G. Crawley, fair bat, good field. G. K. Hext, fair bat, and good field. T. Greatorex, good bat and field, and can take the wicket a little. A. J. Richardson, fair hat. E. P. Heritage, hard-hitting bat. Hon. C. Anson, good bat at times, and a capital field. Lord Athlumney, bowler and bat. F. H. Farmer, howler. F. H. Oates, bowler. W. C. Staveley, fair bat, and can bowl a little. The best of these will probably prove to be Hcwett, Whitelaw, the two Sandersons, Buxton, Hext, Greatorex, Anson, and Athlumney. The Winchester authorities are also very reticent in distributing information, but the Freshmen’s matches at Oxford and Cambridge show that most of the successful performers of last year have gone up to one or other of the Universities. The captain, Hon. J. W. Mansfield, is at Cambridge, Lea, Hick- ley, Stainton, and Hornby at Oxford, and at the outside there can only he four old choices for 1882. H. G. Ruggles-Brise, the captain, showed very fair form with the bat last season as well as some promise with the ball, but there are so many vacan­ cies that he will have some trouble to reconstitute the eleven. At Rugby, H. T. Arnall and W. Bowden-Smith only are left of the eleven which beat Marlborough in 1881. The weather has interfered so much with the practice that little chance has been had of test­ ing the new material, but there is every prospect that the team will be up to the usual standard. The School arrangements interfere sadly with the chances of Westminster ever turning out a very strong team. Of late cricket has certainly not flourished at Vincent Square, and there does not seem to be that enthusiasm among the leaders of the game whish will alone produce success. Pooley and other professionals have been indefatigable in their tuition for some weeks, but it must be admitted with regret that good material is not superabundant. Of last year’s eleven there remain Dale, Higgins, Bain, Eden, Harington, and Roller. Higgins is a good bat, with plenty of finishing power, as well as a very fair medium pace bowler, and with care might make a good all-round player. Bale is a good bat when set, and can bowl slow round arm left, but otherwise there was nothing iu the form of last year to argue any very great promise, and strenu­ ous efforts will be required to bring the team up to any high standard. Charterhouse last year had an eleven above the average, and two of its members, 0. W. Wright and C. A. Smith, are now being tried for Cambridge. W. A. Cobbo’d is a neat bat and quick field, hut he has only E. P. Spurway and T. W. Blenkiron, one of the bowlers of 1881, to support him, and consequently this year’s team will be almost entirely a new one. At Cheltenham only four members of last year’s team are left, namely: C. E. Greenway (captain). H. V. Page, D. Jones, and N. C. Chamberlain, who got his colours as twelfth man last year. The prospects for the season are fair, as there are some good ma­ terial left from the Twenty-two of 1882 both in batt­ ing and bowling, while Page is a bowler above the average of Public Schools. The Rev. P. Hattersley- Smith gives two bats this year for proficiency and im­ provement in fielding, one open to the Eleven, the other to the Twenty-two, so that by the end of th e season fielding throughout the college will no doubt be greatly improved. G. M’Canlis, who was coach, has left, and his place has been ofccupied by C. R. Ford. Repton is singularly fortunate in having a3 many as eight old choices remaining for this season—H. H.Dobinson (capt., 1879.) E. M. Forbes, capt.1880, and 0. Grabham, E. F. Kearsey, W. F. Jameson, W. S. R. May, H. Buckley, E. H. D’Oyly, all of 1881. A. J. Cochrane promises well both as a bowler (fast left) and as a bat. There are also several other_rising youngsters ; and the team on the whole promises well in batting. The match with Upping­ ham takes place on July 5 and 6, that with Malvern on June 30 and July 1. This season for the first time the School plays an Eleven of the Marylebone Club and Ground. Bradfield has four of its old choices available—W. Leatham (captain), R. Guy, P. A. Gore, and T. W. Gellibrand. Ince, who was twelfth man, is certain to gain a place in the eleven this year. The batting will be quite up to the average, and in all probabi­ lity Guy’s name will be associated with good scores. Gore will most likely have to bear the brunt of the bowling, and it is in this department that the captain will have the most trouble apparently. Rawlinson, the old professional of the School, is again at his post, and there is a heavy match list to be got through. At Brighton the eleven of 1881 will be represen­ ted by R. A. Dewing, A. B. Sangster, and W. Le Maistre. The bowling is sure to be moderately good, as Dewing and Sangster did service for the Gentlemen of Sussex last season in this department. A few of the second eleven of 1881 are likely to be of use, but it is rather early as yet to be satisfied as to their form. A new Pavilion is in course of construction on the College ground, and a resident ground man has lately been engaged. TH E C R IC K E T E R S OF MY T IM E . (By J ohn N yren of the Hambledon Club.) T he game of cricket is thoroughly British. Its de­ rivation is probably from the Saxon ‘ ‘ cpyce a stick.” Strutt, however, in his sports and pastimes, states that he can find no record of the game under its present appellation beyond the commencement of the last century, where it occurs in one of the songs published by D’Urfey. The first four lines of “ A noble race was Shenkin ” ran thus :— “ Her was the prettiest fellow At Football or at Cricket, At hunting chase or nimble race, How featly her could prick it.” The same historian of these games doubts not that cricket derived its origin from the ancient game of club ball, the patronymics of which being com­ pounded of Welch and Danish (clwppa and bol) do not warrant his conclusion, the Saxon being an elder occupant of our island. The circumstance, however, of there being no illustration extant—no missal, illuminated with a group engaged in this king of athletic games, as is the case with its ple­ beian brother, the club b a ll; also from its constitu­ tion being of a more civil and complicated cha­ racter—we may rationally infer that it is the off- spring of a more polite, at all events, of a more maturer age than its fellow. The game of club ball appears to have been no other than the present well- known bat and ball, which, with similar laws and customs prescribed in the playing at it, was doubt­ less anterior to trap ball. The trap indeed carries with it an air of refinement “ in the wealth of mechanism.” They who are acquainted with some of the re­ mote and unfrequented villages of England, where the primitive manners, customs, and games of our ancestors survive in the perfection of rude and un­ adulterated simplicity, must have remarked the lads playing at a game which is the same in its out­ line as the consummate piece of perfection that is at this day the glory of Lord’s and the pride of English athletes—I mean the one in which a single stick is appointed for a wicket, ditto for a bat, and about the same repeated of about three inches in length for a ball. If this be not the original of the game of cricket, it is a plebeian imitation of it. My purpose, however, is not to search into the antiquities of cricketing, but to record my recol­ lections of some of the most eminent professors of my favourite pastime who have figured on the public arena since the year 1778, when I might be about twelve years of age. From that period till within a few seasons past, I have been constantly ‘ ‘ at the receipt of custom,’’when any rousing match has been toward, and being now a veteran and laid up in ordinary I may be allowed the vanity of a quotation— “ Quorum pars magna fui.’’ * I was born at Hambledon, in Hampshire—the Attica of the scientific art I am celebrating. No eleven in England could compare with the Hamble­ don, which met on the first Tuesday in May on Broad Halfpenny. So renowned a set were the men of Hambledon that the whole country round would flock to see one of their trial matches. “ Great men” indeed “ have been among us—better none” ; and in th 3 course of my recollections I shall have occasion to instance so many within the know­ ledge of persons now living, as will, I doubt not, warrant me in giving the palm to my native place. The two principal bowlers in my early days were Thomas Brett and Richard Nyren, of Hambledon, the “ corps de reserve” or change bowlers were Barber and Hogsflesh Brett was beyond compa­ rison the fastest as well as the straightest bowler that was ever known; he was neither athrower nor a jerker, but a legitimate downright bowler, deliver­ ing his ball fairly, high and very quickly, quite as strongly as the jerlcers, and with the force of a point-blank shot. He was a well-grown dark-look­ ing man, remarkably strong, and with rather a short arm. As a batter he was comparatively an inferior player, a slashing hitter, but he had little guard of his wicket, and his judgment of the game was held in great estimation. Brett, whose occu­ pation was that of a farmer, bore the character of a strictly honourable man in all his transactions, whether in business or in amusement. Richard Nyren was left-handed. He had a high delivery, always to the length, and his balls were provokingly deceitful. He was the chosen general of all the matches, ordering and directing the whole. In such esteem did the brotherhood hold his experience and judgment that he was uniformly consulted on all questions of law and precedent ; and I never knew an exception to be taken against his opinion, or his decision to be reversed. I never saw a finer specimen of the thoroughbred old English yeoman than Richard Nyren. He was a good face to face, unflinching, uncompromising, independent man. He placed a full and just value upon the station he held in society, and he main­ tained it without insolence or assumption. He could differ with a superior without trenching upon his dignity or losing his own. I have known him maintain an opinion with great firmness against the Duke of Dorset and Sir Horace Mann, and when, in consequence of being proved to be in the right, the latter has afterwards crossed the ground and shaken him heartily by the hand. Nyren had im­ mense advantage over Brett, for independently of his general knowledge of the game, he was practically a better cricketer, being a safe batsman and an excel­ lent hitter. Although a very stout man (standing about five feet nine) he was uncommonly active. He owed all the skill and judgment he possessed to an old uncle, Richard Newland, of Slindon, in Sussex, under whom he was brought up—a man so famous in his time that when a song was written in honour of the Sussex cricketers, Richard Newland was especially and honourably signalised. No one ever dared to play him. When Richard Nyren left Hambledon, the club broke up, and never resumed from that day. The head and right arm were gone. Barber and Hogsflesh were both good hands ; they had a high delivery and a generally good length, not very strong, however, for those days of playing, when the bowling was all fast. These four were our tip-top men, and I think such another stud was not to be matched in the whole kingdom, either before or since. They were choice fellows, staunch and thorough-going. No thought of treachery ever seemed to have entered their heads. The modern politics of trickery and “ crossing ” were (so far as my own experiences and judgment of their actions extended) as yet a “ sealed book” to * I learned a little Latin, when I was a boy, of a worthy old Jesuit, but I was a better hand at the fiddle ; and many a time have I taught the gipsies a tune during their annual visits to our village, thereby purchasing the security of our poultry yard. When the hand of ;the destroyer was streiched over the neigh­ bouring woods, our little Goshen was always passed by.