Cricket 1886

Registered*fo/T^ansmfasion Abroad. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1886. PR ICE 2d. FRANK H EA RN E . L ike his two brothers, Frank Hearne, the second in seniority of the three members of the triumvirate to whose excellent all-round cricket Kent lias been so largely indebted of late years, was born in Middlesex. Ealing, a village with which the Hearne family has been long and honourably connected, was his birthplace as theirs, for he first saw the light there on November 23, 1858. When six years of age his parents left Ealing to settle at South­ gate, where George Hearne the elder, his father—as has already been men­ tioned previously in our biography of the younger George—resided for some time, acting as care-taker of the late Mr. John Walker’s excellent ground. His earliest record on the cricket field, as far as we can learn, was during his connection with Southgate School. This was when he was only thirteen, and so tired were his opponents, the Colnev Hatch School, of the batting of his elder brother and himself that they gave up the game in disgust at their inability to separate the pair, George having made 90 and Frank 70, both not out. Another migration of his parents took place in the following year, this time into Kent, a step necessitated by his father’s election to the post of ground keeper to the Private Banks Cricket Club, which had just then entered into possession of the exten­ sive enclosure it still holds at Catford Bridge. The season of 1875 saw Frank Hearne under engagement to the Private Banks Club as one of its ground bowlers, a position he held for several years. During his stay there under the watchful eye of his father, in his day a good cricketer, he found no lack of opportunities for improving his cricket, though he was in his twenty-first year before it had devel­ oped sufficiently to warrant his trial in a match under the auspices of the Kent County Club. His introduction to Kent cricket was in the match be­ tween the Colts of Kent and Colts of Surrey, played at Mote Park, Maidstone, on May 26 and 27,1879. A well-got first score of 33, sup­ ported as it was by some very promising out- cricket, led to his immediate inclusion in the county eleven, and he assisted Kent in its first engagementof that year, againsttheMary- leb'one Club and Ground at Lord’s on June 12. Run out in the first innings before he had a chance of scoring, he was unlucky enough to be dismissed when he went in a second time without a run, so that his debut was not, in batting at least, a very propitious one. Indeed for some time after his appearance in the Kent eleven he was singularly unfortunate as a batsman. In 1879 his average for eighteen innings was only just over four and a half runs, and the following summer witnessed but a very slight improvement, his aggregate for twenty innings, with four not outs, only amounting to ninety-five, with fourteen as his highest score. On the other hand despite his ill-success with the bat his fielding had been sc much above the average as amply to justify his retention in the eleven. His second season, too, was by nomeans an uneventful one, for on more than one occasion he did good service as a bowler, so much indeed thatthe twelve wickets he got were obtained at an averagecost of just under that number of runs. A slight advance­ ment was noticeable in his position in the Kent batting averages of 1881, but still it was mainly his out-cricket which kept him in the County eleven, and his one score of any ac­ count in the leading matches, of the year, was his twenty-one not out against Sussex at Maidstone. The summer of 1882 was not a happy one for him in any way. On the contrary it was singularly unfortunate, and a season of only moderate success was brought to an unlucky ter­ mination in the return match with Yorkshire, played at Gravesend in August. On this occasion a ball from Ulyett hit him on the head, and the effects weie so severe that he had not sufficiently recovered to be able to take his post in the County eleven in 1883. An engagement at Lord’s, though, commenced that summer helped to materially improve his batting, and in the following year he took part in sixteen of the eighteen matches undertaken by the County Club with distinct credit. Against Yorkshire at Sheffield in particular he showed to great advantage, and his two scores of 61 out of 151 and 32 out of 129 represented, indeed, far and away the best batting on the side of Kent. Later in the year at Canter­ bury, against the Australians, he proved his capadty as a batsman beyond all doubt, and the stand he made with Lord Harris, who helped to add 89 for the second wicket in the County’s second innings, played no unimportant part in Kent’s most creditable victory, the only one—as many will no doubt remember—ob­ tained by a County eleven against the Australian team of 1884. The brothers G. G. and Frank Hearne were among the chief mainstays of the Kent eleven with the bat last year. They each played in nineteen innings, three more than any other batsman of the County, and their aggregates were singularly alike, Frank making 377 to 374 of his brother, though the former, with the advantage of two not-outs against one, had the better average of the two. Oddly enough, too, as in 1884, the match with Yorkshire at Sheffield was one of his most successful, and his first innings of 37 on that occasion was the highest score of the