Cricket 1887

JUNE 2, 1887. CRICKET?: A WEEKLY RECORD OE THE GAME. 169 We have now got an Association of cricketers called in Dutch “ De Nederlandsche Crickat- bond ” (secretary, Mr. D. A. Koster, Scheven- ingsche Park, Scheveningen), an association of about 16 cricket clubs from different parts of the country, with about 600 or 700 members. Among these associated clubs the best clubs are: The Hague Cricket Club Concordia (secre­ tary, D. A. Koster), with about 60 members. The club played 11 matches in the year 1886, of which it won 8 (against Dutchmen) and lost 3 (against Englishmen). The Cricket and Football Club Olympia (secretary, Semmelink Hugo, de Grootstraat, the Hague), counting some 40 or 60 members. The Cricket Club Rood and Wit at Haarlem (secretary, C. A. Abbing, Frans Kalsstraat 5, Haarlem), counting about 66 members. The Cricket. Club Progress (secretary, Weetgen), at Amsterdam, and the Cricket Club R.W.N. (secretary, H. J. Koenen), at Amsterdam. These are at the same time the best clubs of .Holland. What we should like here in Holland is to play against an eleven of a club, not against a mixed eleven from various clubs. Why should not some school make a trip to Holland during their holidays and try a game with us ? Some years ago we had a visit from the Tonbridge Eovers, among whom were Messrs. Hubbard and W. Rashleigh. I still feel very proud to remember that I caught them both at square- leg, especially now the latter is playing so well for Oxford University. They were the best bats we have so far seen in Holland. Hoping that the few lines I have written will encourage some school or club to pay us a visit, I remain, yours truly, G. L . M ens F iers S meding , Member of the Hague Club. A c o r r e sp o n d e n t , always well informed on cricket matters, writes me as follows on the subject of the difference in the dates of the Bexley and Kent match in 1805 in the Sporting Magazine and Bentley's Boole o f Matches :— “ August 25, 1805,” he writes, “ was a Sunday, and September 30 a Monday. Monday seems a more likely day than Friday, as the present custom of playing the first three days and the last three days of the week was then in force. I f the match was on Friday, August 30 would suit the day, and to some extent might explain the fact of one date giving the month wrong, and the other the day. Kent never played so late as September 30.” C r ic k e t readers will be interested to know that Mr. A. N. H ornby’s eldest son has just joined that best o f nurseries for cricketers, Elstree School. It is twenty- eight years since, if I remember rightly, Albert — Albert the Good, truly, as a cricketer— Hornby made his first big score, 65, to the best of my recollection, for Elstree, against Barnet School, on the ground of the latter. It was the Lanca­ shire Captain’s second year in the Elstree Eleven, unless my memory is at fault, and as he could not then have been more than twelve years of age, those who remember him in the Eton and Harrow match at Lord’s, in 1864, when, if the account in “ Scores and Biographies” is correct, he weighed, bat and ball, under six stone, he must have been, in very truth, a pocket Hercules. Messrs. F. A. Mackinnon, C. J. Smith, and Morton P. Betts, three Old Harrovians who have done good work since on the cricket field, were, it may be added, in the same Elstree eleven to which I have just referred. I h a v e more than once of late had occasion to point to good performances of the veteran H. F. Boyle, both with bat and ball, practical evidence that those who are arranging for the visit of another party of Australian cricketers to England next summer, are exercising a wise discretion in including him in the team. One of his latest records was for an East Melbourne eleven against 15 Hawthorn Juniors on the East Melbourne Ground, on April 21, The juniors in their first innings were out for the miserable total of 11. H. F. Boyle took eleven wickets for 6. In his last over he secured four in successive balls, off the fifth ball a chance was given at the wickets, and the sixth ball took a wicket, making five wickets in the over. In their second essay the Juniors totted up 26, Boyle bagging 7 of them for 16 runs. Two days later East Melbourne dismissed Hotham for 16 and 39, and in this match Boyle delivered 114 balls for 19 runs and ten wiekets. T hose C ricket readers interested in the success of the Oxford Eleven, will be glad to hear that there is after all every likelihood of U . 0 . "Whitby being able to give them the assistance of his bowling in the later matches. There is every probability that he will be able to get away from Derby School, where he has at present a mastership, and, if so, he will be ready to take his place in the University Eleven after the end of the term. Every one, too, will be glad to see E. H. Buck- land again in the team. At present it seems not unlikely that the following will be the Oxford Eleven at Lord’s:— J. H . Brain, L. D . Hildyard, K. J. Key, A. H. J. Cochrane, E. H . Buckland, H . O. Whitby, H . T. Hewett, H , W . Forster, H. Philipson, F. H . Gresson, and W . Rashleigh. S e v e r a l correspondents have written to The Gossip, enquiring as to the county for which Mr. F. H . Gresson, the Fresh­ man who has made such an exceptionally promising debut at Oxford this season, is qualified. I believe I am right in stat­ ing that Sussex is the only county which has any claim on the services of the young Oxonian, who was born as well as lives in Worthing. Mr. Gresson is a very steady bat, and sound too, with perhaps only one really bad stroke, in the slips. He bowls left-hand medium pace, high up, and breaks back a great deal on a sticky wicket, though in pitch he is very erratic. He is, though, only a poor field. Mr. B. G. Glennie, of Keble, about whom I have also had some enquiries, is, unless I am mistaken, a Staffordshire man. H is t o r y repeats itself in odd ways on the cricket field. I have not, though, come across a stranger illustration of the truth of the axiom than has recently been brought to my notice in connection with the Drumpellier Club, which is, as most who have any acquaintance with Scottish cricket know, one ot the best clubs on the other side of the Tweed. I sh o u l d fancy, indeed, that there are few, if any, instances of two successive matches o f any club both ending in a tie, as was the case with the two fixtures of the Drumpellier Club played respectively on the 21st and 28th of last month. The first match was against the Edinburgh Australians, including Messrs. G. J. Bonnor, who, by the way, got the unenvi­ able “ duck,” and R. J. Pope, one of the reserves o f the last Australian team, and here both sides scored 111. On the second occasion, on the following Satur­ day, R. J. Pope was also an opponent of the Drumpellier team, and here again the result was a tie, Edinburgh University making precisely the same total as that of Drumpellier, to wit, 78. By the.way, Bottomore the professional, who played some few years ago for Leicester­ shire, carried his bat through the Uni­ versity innings for 35 runs. Bonnor was bowled the first ball he had by R. Scott, if I mistake not the bowler who just recently proved so effective for the West of Scotland against Shaw and Shrewsbury’s team just back from the Colonies. A b a t t in g performance very much out of the common was recorded to the credit o f two of the Charterhouse Eleven, J. B. Hawkins and E. C. Streatfield, for the V II. against the X I. of that School on May 19. The pair put on as many as 214 runs before the first wicket fell, an achievement of no small merit. I h e a r on the best authority that the arrangements on this side, in the mattar of the mixed team of English cricketers to visit Australia next winter, under the auspices of the Melbourne Cricket Club, are progressing very satisfactorily. There is every reason to believe that the team collected by Mr. Vernon will be a strong one. JThoughI|am unable as yet to publish the names, several important accessions, professionals as well as amateurs, have lately been made to Mr. Vernon’s list. I hope very shortly now to be able to give definitely the names of the players who will constitute the English team. M r . C. W . R o c k , the old Cambridge Blue, whose bowling would have been of the greatest value to the Warwickshire Eleven in the matches they have played so far this season, is, as I have pointed out before, making his mark thoroughly on his native heath, Tasmania. He did some good bowling for Northern Tasmania, against the Twelve of the Mel­ bourne Club, which visited Launceston on Easter Monday and Tuesday, and it was, indeed, to him in a great measure that the Tasmanians owed their success. H e took, altogether, fourteen wickets of the Melbourne Club for 67 runs, and was in addition second scorer on his side in the second innings with 36. As I have not even yet seen any official denial of the absurd statement which ap­ peared some ten weeks ago in a London contemporary, on the authority of its Sydney correspondent, t at the well known and popular cricketer, Percy