Cricket 1884

THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 1884. PRI0EJ2d. GEO RG E P ICK E R IN G HARR ISON . T here are very few instances in the h istory of the game o f a cricketer, either amateur or professional, attaining, in his first year o f public cricket, the highest honours. The performance of the fast bowler who did such sterling; service for Yorkshire last year is, indeed, ex­ ceptional. Until the commence­ ment of 1883 he was literally un­ known in a cricketing sense. Those who witnessed the opening match of last year at Lord’s, when the Young Players of the North ad­ ministered such a severe defeat to the Young Players of the South, will hardly have forgotten the details of a sensational game. It was on that occasion that Harrison made his debut in important cricket. The batting of the Southerners was so extremely poor that few bowlers on the Northern side had a real chance. It was the good fortune of the Yorkshireman, though, to be able to make the most of his first opportunities, and in the second innings of the South he got nine wickets, all clean bowled. His performance then was an extra­ ordinary one, for he not only secured three wickets with successive balls, but actually obtained five wickets ln Bj* balls. His great precision, combined with extreme pace, on toat occasion pointed him out to i? 8 Yorkshire committee as a very lkely candidate to take the place jn the County eleven caused by jne retirement of Allan Hill, and 18 opening match of the season, againstMarylebone Club and Grouud ^ Lord’s, on May 21, found him jor the first time in the Yorkshire earn. The Marj lebone eleven was VV excePtiona% strong one in with o ’ aUd Harrison> wh° was put on first • ? ^ eate, was successful in securing the in tu » of most dangerous batsmen n . ™ N. Hornby. In this match he was y moderately successful, but although his two wickets cost forty-one runs, considering the quality of the batting he had to oppose it was a very creditable performance for a young player. His next match for Yorkshire was on the following Thursday against Cambridge University, at Cambridge, and though his one wicket in the second innings cost thirty-one runs, in the first he was credited with the downfall of four batsmen at a cost of only forty- three runs, His success in this match materially helped to establish his reputation, and his position in the team even then was fairly secure. It was in the first county match of the year, though, that he made his mark decisively, and hia remarkable bowling in conjunction with Peate, against a weak eleven of Kent, will be well remembered by many. These two, indeed, were unchanged during the match, and Harrison’s figures show that he took eleven of the twenty Kentish wickets for seventy-six runs. In the next four matches he was less successful, but in the first fixture of jthe season^against Lancashire, at Manchester, he was singularly effective, and it was in some measure due to his bowling in the first inn­ ings of Lancashire that the York- ehiremen were able to claim a creditable victory by eight'wickets. This was really his best feat of tho year and his analysis in that innings was one of the most remarkable of tbe season, showing seventy balls for forty-three runs and seven wickets. His successes had at this time marked him as one of the most effective fast bowlers of the day, and so impressed were the authori­ ties at Lord’s by his exploits that thoy paid him the high complimont of . awarding him a place in the eleven to represent the Players against the Gentlemen, a very rare distinction, as already stated. As will be remembered, that contest was the most run-getting event of the season, and Harrison’s bowling did not prove so deadly on the true wicket, his four wickets costing one hundred and thirty-three runs. In the return match with Lan­ cashire at Sheffield he was as effective on tho whole as at Man­ chester, and here too his bowling was n o t expensive,his eight wickets only costing an average of seven-and-a-half runs. Against Surrey at Holbeck in the second innings he was credited with five wickets for twenty-three ran3, and in the return h<s took eight wickets in all, though at by no means so