Cricket 1887

2 CRICKET A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. JAN. 27, 1887. was greatly helped by one score of 62 not out against Hampshire at Tonbridge. His best performances for his University last season were againsb the Australians at Cambridge and against Yorkshire at Sheffield. In the former match his hitting towards the end of the innings helped to save the follow-on, and by that means the match, and in the latter his first score of 58 was an excelleut display of free cricket. His most notable achievement of the season, though, was for Kent against Surrey at Beckenham. On this occasion his hitting was brilliant, and he was responsible for 93 and 65 of the Kent totals of 243 and 181 from the bat. Just at that period (the end of July), indeed, lie was in exceptionally good form. In the next match, a week later, against Derbyshire, he was principal scorer with 59, so that in three successive innings he made altogether 202 runs for the county. Though it cannot be said that he has as yet fulfilled the expectations created by his great performance for Eton at Lord’s, it is not at all certain that he has been seen at his best. A capital leg-hitter, he is perhaps a little too much inclined to get balls round there. A little more patience, too, would improve his play materially, and these defects remedied he ought to be a very good bat. As it is, if he gets set, he is very dangerous. He has great driving powers, and he hits all-round so hard that runs are bound to come fast. He is, too, an excellent field, particularly in the country. Mr. Marchant has also made his mark in Asso­ ciation football, having represented Cambridge University and the Old Etonians with credit. Our portrait is from a photograph by Hill and Saunders, Cambridge. “ Circumstances over which we had no control” prevented us giving the portrait and biography of Lord Lyttelton, the President of M.C.C., in this issue. These we hope to insert in an early number. VISIT OF WEST INDIAN CRICKETERS TO AMERICA AND CANADA. Mr. Guy Wyatt, the indefatigable Hon. Sec. of the Georgetown Club of Demerara, British Guiana, to whose energy was mainly due the visit of a West Indian team to the United States and Canada last summer, has cour­ teously favoured us with a few particulars respecting that trip. Altogether thirteen matches were played, of which six were won, two drawn, and five lost. Considering that the team was not anything like the best that could have been collected to represent the West Indies, the results were fairly satis­ factory, and the tour should give a decided impetus to the game among West Indians. The averages of the fourteen cricketers who formed the party will be found below. BATTING AVERAGES. Tim es M ost in Inns, not out. Runs, an Inns. Aver. J. Lees ........... 23 . . 2 ... 466 .. 47 .. 22.4 E. N. Marshall 17 . . 1 ... 231 .. 47 .. 14.7 E. M. Skeete ... 20 . . 1 ... 245 .. 32 .. 12.17 W .Farquhar son23 . . 0 ... 265 .. 65 .. 11.12 J. M. Burke ... j 9 . . G ... 136 .. 45 .. 10.6 G. W yatt 18 . . 1 ... 166 .. 61 .. 9.13 P. Isaacs........... 13 . . 1 ... 88 .. 21 .. 7.4 R. H. Stewart 22 . . 0 ... 146 .. 17 .. 6 14 A . W . Sw ain... 11 . . 1 ... 54 .. 27 .. 5.4 T. S Skeete ... 13 . . 3 ... 53 .. 19* .. 5.3 L .Isa a cs 17 . . 2 ... 71 .. 26* .. 4.11 L . Kerr ........... 14 . . 1 ... 61 .. 12 .. 4.9 W . Collym ore 10 . . 2 ... 35 .. 12 .. 4.3 L. R. Fyfe ... 22 . 3 ... 61 .. 8 .. 3 4 Summary : 14 men played in 242 innings (not outs nunbered‘2 4 )-2i8 com pleted innings—for a total of ‘2078 runs, average per man per innings 9,116, 97 were bowled, I'O caught, 6 leg before, 13 run oat, and 6 stumped. BOvvLING AVERAGES. O. M. R. Wkts. Aver. W.Farquharson386.1 .. 152 . . 565 ... 61 . . 9.16 3c. H. Stewart...232 .. 72 . . 397 ... 42 . . 9.19 J. M. Burke ...487.2 .. 214 . . 651 ... 65 . 10.1 T. S.Skeete ...10 .. 3 . . 12 ... 1 . . Is J. Lees .......... 177.3 .. 47 . . 339 ... 19 . . 17.16 E. N. Marshall 49 .. 19 . . 73 ... 3 . . 24.1 L. Isaacs...........22 . 7 . . 42 ... 1 . . 42 A. W . Swain ... 33 . 13 . . CO ... 0 TH E P O P U L A R P A S T I M E - CR ICKET . By kinl permission of Messrs. Blackwood and Son, we are able to reproduce the follow­ ing article from Blacktvoocl's Magazine of December. The author, an old and well-known cricketer, has also been good enough to revise for the publicationi n C ricket , “ G ive me the making of the ballads of a people, and I care not who makes heir laws,” said a student of history and of human nature as long ago as Shakespeare’s time; another, but a similar saying, might be adopted as better applicable to our present state of society—“ Give me the fashioning of the games of the people, I will give the law­ making to the people themselves.” The intrinsic love of right and justice, the self- denial and hardihood, the subordination of one’s self to one’s cause, the inability to realise defeat, the pleasure in an uphill fight, which distinguish the modern Englishman, are all characteristics of a game which, uncer­ tain as its origin may be, and confined as it was for many years to a small fraction of the population, is now among the educated youth of the three kingdoms the pastime most inter­ woven with their daily habits. As the wise and witty writer, who has redeemed the phrase “ clerical humorist ” from the be­ smirched flavour it had contracted by un­ worthy pretenders to the title, has aptly said— W ith a bat for a sceptre, and a billycock for a crown, and with a ball in his left hand like Britannia, King Cricket sits enthroned on an enorm ous roller, and is beloved through the land. When his royal m andate is issued, and when, with the m ajestic brevity of an em peror, he bids m en “ Play I” every grade of society, from prince to ploughm an, begins to divest itself o f upper clothing, and all denom inations begin to bowl. By noblem en, gentlemen, tradesmen, workm en; by clubs aristocratic and rustic, m ilitary and civil, collegiate and scholastic, local and locom otive, one-arm ed and one-legged; by clubs with extra­ ordinary titles, and clubs with extraordinary vestm ents, rivalling the coat of m any colours, but not provoking a spark of envy, because the brethren know that the old flannel uniform is cooler, cleaner, m ore neat and w orkm an-like; by cricketers wherever you go ; on village greens with a dozen spectators sm oking their clays under an ancient rick-cloth, and in the great city where the upper ten thousand go to cheer their Eton and Harrow boys— Semper, ubique, ab omnibus is King Cricket obeyed and loved. And since these words were written we have learned how extensive is the area of his kingdom. True, that twenty years ago the English tenure of Corfu had left its mark in the heading Xpixcr in the vernacular news­ papers; but we little knew then that the young giants of the antipodes were preparing to send team after team to school their Eng­ lish progenitors in the noble game, until the picture of the old man beaten by the boy whom he had instructed came to be reversed, and audacious Young England taught Old England how to beat him. Yes; cricket now stands with a large pro­ portion of the cultivated and law-upholding folk of this country in as near a relation to godliness and morality as in those antique days when the parson of Alresford, on the afternoon of the first Sunday in May, instead of ascending the pulpit as usual after the prayer of St. Chrysostom, doffed his surplice, and having sallied out at the head of his con­ gregation to where the wickets stood ready pitched, then and there in his cassock solemnly bowled the first ball as a signal that the sea­ son had fairly begun. There is hardly a town or a parish in South Britain which has not its cricket-ground and its club or clubs. In Scotland there are so many more outlets for manly activity, that our game can but be classed as an exotic; while the lymphatic atmosphere to which Lord Beaconsfield referred so many of the evils of that dis­ tressful country, militates against the pro­ pagation of cricket in Ireland. And in the Principality, a pastime which it is impossible Next Issue February 24 to connect either with Druidic or Method- istical tradition, has few charms for the natives, especially as no money is to be made by it. The counties of the south-east are the original home of the game, and the course of cricket empire has taken its way not only westward but northward, while still claiming for its own the favoured kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, and Wessex. The increase in the popularity and reputa­ tion of the game of cricket is quite a matter of the present century. A hundred years ago, in not only was practised over a very small portion of England, but stood in the scale of sports between the amusements of school-boys and the wager-winning devices of idle game­ sters. For a respectable man of mature age to be seen playing, or even take an interest in cricket, was discreditable in the days of Swift and Pope. What would Chief-Justice Pratt have thought of one of her Majesty’s judges breaking his leg at cricket, as Justice Grantham did the other day? In 1719, at Guildhall, the Chief-Justice was called upon to decide a plea between the men of Kent and the men of London for £60, played for at cricket; and, says “ Mist’s Journal,” “ after a long hearing, and near £200 expended in the cause, my lord, not understanding the game, ordered them to play it over again.” In 1743 the “ Gentleman’s Magazine” contained a serious diatribe against cricket advertise­ ments, which are accused not only of draw­ ing together great crowds of people, “ who ought all of them to be somewhere else—noble­ men, gentlemen, and clergymen have no right to invite thousands of people to be spectators of their agility, at the lexpense of their duty and honesty,” but also of being a great encouragment to gaming; “ the advertise­ ments most impudently reciting that great sums are laid.”* Something of the same feeling manifests itself in a rather smart parody on Chevy Chase, recording the defeat of the Kentish eleven by Surrey, written by a Rev. J. Duncombe in 1773, whose last verse runs as follows:— “ God save the king, and bless the land With plenty and increase. And grant, henceforth, that idle games. In harvest-time may cease.” The captains of the respective sides on this occasion were the Duke of Dorset and Lord Tankerville, to whom, under the title of the two idlest lords in his Majesty’s three king­ doms, was addressed, in 1778, a satirical poem of some four hundred lines, the scope of which will be discovered from the dedica­ tion :— My Lords, the following trifle was intended for your perusal last year, but not being one of the genus irritabile vatum, but on the contrary, a bard of meekness and Christian forbearance, I deferred the publication from the fond hope that as you grew older you m ight grow wiser. Dis­ appointed in m y wishes, and desparing of a reform ation (for I am inform ed that you have got a fresh cargo of bats and balls, and that Lumpy, Small, Horseflesh, w ith several other equally respectable personages, are ordered to prepare their shins for another campaign), I take the liberty of presenting to your Lordships this testim onial of m y regard. May it produce an amendment. ’Tis said that Nero fiddled when R om e was burning. The conduct of your Lordships seems nearly similar. For Ood’s sake, fling away your bats, kick your m ob-com - panions out of your house, and though you can do your bleeding country no service, cease to accum ulate insult on m isfortune by making it ridiculous. These final sentences allude to the American war, then verging on its unsuccessful close f * Cricket advertisem ent in 1705.—“ This is to give notice that a M atch at Cricket is to be plaid between ll Gentlem en of the west part of the county of Kent against as many of Chatham , for 11 guineas a man, at M auldon in Kent, on the 7th of August next.” D itio in 1707.—“ There w ill be two great M atches at Cricket plaid between London and C roydon; the first at Croydon on Thursday, July l ; and the other to be plaid in L am b’s Conduit fields near Holborn, on the Thursday following, being the 8th o f July.”