Cricket 1883

No. 30. VOL. 2. Registered for Transmission Abroad. E DM U N D P E A TE . To attain the very topmost ring of the ladder within a period of four years is a feat which has fallen to the lot of few, very few, professional cricketers. Yet this enviable destinction can fairly be claimed by the young player whose portrait we give this week. Edmund Peate was bom at Holbeck, near Leeds, on March 2, 1856, and has, consequently, just completed his twenty-seventh year. His first ap­ pearance in a trial game, if we remember rightly, was in the Yorkshire Colts’ match, at Bramall-lane, in 1879. His erformance on that occasion, though we ave not the precise details, was of such a high quality as to justify the greatest hopes of his future, and not a few good judges were so impressed with the accu­ racy of, and the work in his bowling, as to predict his immediate attainment of a permanent place in the County Eleven. His first essay for Yorkshire was against Surrey, at Hull, in the third fixture of the season of 1879, but Hill and Bates proved so successful witli the ball that ho only bowled four overs, and he neither took a wicket nor got a run. The end of the same week found him one of the County Eleven against Kent, at Sheffield, and here, with the wicket all in favour of the bowler, he first really made his mark. Kent, on that occasion, had a fairly strong batting side, but, chiefly through the effective bowling of the Yorkshire Colt, they were unable to get a hundred in either innings, and Peate fairly made his reputation with an analysis of 76 overs for 77 runs and twelve wickets. Another victory greeted Yorkshire in its next match with Notts, at Sheffield, and here, again, the success was iu a great measure due to the bowling of Peate, who wa3 fatal to five wickets, in the second innings of Notts, at a cost of only thirty-five runs. In the same year Peate was credited with eleven wickets of Gloucestershire, at Sheffield, and, in less than a fortnight later, he achieved even a more noteworthy performance in taking ten wickets of a strong batting side of Middlesex for forty-eight runs, at Huddersfield. It is safe to THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1883. say that no slow bowler has ever achieved such a record in the first year of his appearance, and, in proof of his success, reference need only be made to his figures in 1879, for Yorkshire, which showed 675 overs, 258 maidens, 752 runs and 65 wickets. Though only in his second year, his performances during 1880 fully estab­ lished him as one of the most successful slow bowlers of the day, and some of his feats wi ll P E A T t the ball, for Yorkshire, were exceptional. In the match against Lancashire, at Old Trafford, in the second innings he bowled 38 overs for 24 runs and 8 wickets, aud in the first innings of Derbyshire, at Derby, his analysis was even more noteworthy, showing 13 overs for 11 runs and five wickets. Throughout the season he was never unsuccessful, and the close of the cricket year found him far in front of the York­ PRICE 2d. shire bowling averages with an analysis of 1,0802 overs for 1,435 runs and 126 wickets, a truly great performance for any bowler, more so for one of his delivery. The following season found Peate at the very top of his profession, and the tables recording the doings of tho various bowlers in the first-class matches of the year, showed him to be the most successful trundler of the day. During that season, in first-class matches, he bowled 1,638 overs for 2,088 runs and 162 wickets, and it requires a very simple calculation to prove that the average cost of his wickets was under 13 runs. As the best slow bowler of the year he was one of the first chosen to represent the Players against the Gentlemen, in 1S81, and one of the earliest invitations by Alfred Shaw to join his team, to visit Australia, at the end of 1881, was made to the slow, left- handed bowler of Yorkshire. Peate’s performances with the ball throughout that tour were of the most brilliant kind, and the members of the Colonial teams which had starred in England in 1878 and 1880, were unanimous in accounting nim the best English bowler they had seen. Peate, Bates, and Midwinter had to bear the brunt of the bowling of the team, but the left-hander was infinitely the most successful of the trio, and his analysis of thattour, 1,382 overs for 1,544 runs and 264 wickets, or an average of 5 224 per wicket, was in every way an extraordinary achievement. During a portion of the last season of 1882 he was suffering from the great disadvantage of a sprained ankle, and this made his bril­ liant successes the more surprising. In the match againstMiddlesex, at Sheffield, he took eight wickets in the second in­ nings for 32 runs, and against Kent, at Sheffield, he did the hat trick in the first in­ nings, securing the wickets of Lord Harris, 0. Shaughnessy, and Lord Throwley, with suc­ cessive balls. In this match he took ten wickets for fifty-six runs, and against Notts, at Sheffield, in Notts’ second innings he had seven of the ten wickets for 68. Against the Australian team his bowling was singularly effective. In the ten matches in which he opposed them he was