Cricket 1888

JU L Y 6, 188a CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 249 Hague and Amsterdam, returning via Rotterdam to London, where they are due to arrive on the morning of Saturday, August the eleventh. T he management of the Hastings Week, which is this year to extend over only six working days, is to be congratulated on the satisfactory completion of the negotia­ tions for the appearance of the Australian team at the end of the festival. The executive has acted wisely in limiting the cricket to two strictly first-class contests, and, as these will consist of North against South, and the Australians against the South of England, with strong teams, there is a certainty of thoroughly good play throughout. T he eleven for the first fixture, between North and South, to be oommenced on Sept. 13, will be weakened to some extent if the Australians play Shrewsbury and Lillywhite’s team, as is possible, in the North, on the same days. This latter fixture would take Briggs, Pilling, and Ulyett away from the North, and Messrs. Smith and Newham, as well as Lohmann from the South. Should the two amateurs be engaged with Shrewsbury’s combina­ tion in Yorkshire, Abel—who, by the way, I am surprised to see only a reserve, after his brilliant form of this season, and also the excellent show he made in the Hastings week last year—and Walter Wright will take their places. T he following have, I learn, either been or are to be asked to play in the first match:—North—Mr. H. B. Daft, Mr. J. A. Dixon, Mr. J. Eccles, Attewell, Barnes, Flowers, Gunn, Hall, Lee, Peel, and Sherwin. South—Mr. W . G. Grace, Mr. W. W. Read, Mr. J. Shuter, Mr. K. J. Key, Mr. A. M. Sutthery, Mr. H . Pigg, Mr. C. A. Smith, Mr. W. Newham, Beaumont, Jesse Hide, and H. Phillips. I n the second match, which is to take place on September 17 and two following days, the same team it is expected will represent the South, with the exception that Beaumont will be replaced by his Surrey mate, Lohmann. I understand that Messrs. W . G. Grace and W. W. Read have already accepted the invitation of the Committee for the week, and the presence of the two foremost cricketers of the day is sure to lend additional interest to the proceedings. I hear Mr. John Shuter will be unable to play, but Mr. Key, I believe, has promised, so that the amateur element, with the Sussex quartette, will be well represented. The Committtee, who, by the way, consist of the following:—The Mayor of Hast­ ings (Chairman), Captain F. Greatrex, Major M. H . Twickinson, F. G. Harding, J. Howell, jun., F. H . Humphreys, R. Ludgate, T. Parkin, J. Phillips, H . Pigg, W . H. S. Stanton, A. M. Sutthery, G. A. Thorpe, S. T. Weston, W . Carless (hon. see.)—deserve the thanks of their fellow- townsmen for the success with which they have carried out a not very easy task, and every one will hope to see their labours crowned by the establishment of the Hastings Week as one of the perma­ nent institutions of the cricket year. T he writer of “ Cricket Notes” in the Whitehaven Free Press is responsible for the following:— Fifteen young Englishmen studying in Berlin have just started the first cricket club ever established in Germany. One of them has sent home an amusing account of the interest the event excited among the Germans. Bats, balls, wickets, leg-guard, and batting and wicket-keeping gloves (which, of course, had to be imported from England) were all examined with a good deal of curiosity. The first time the wickets were pitched about 60 Germans swarmed around them, seeming to think that the nearer they got the greater the assistance they were giving to the players, and it was not until one had received the ball full in the Btomaoh that the necessity of keeping at a respeotable distance was seen. I am afraid the statement that the above club is the first ever established in Germany is not strictly accurate. Indeed, of my own knowledge I can testify to the existence of cricket clubs in other parts of the Fatherland at different times. Not very long since I was an interested spec­ tator of a practice match of the members of a club which, I was told, had been for some little time in evidence at Bremen. T he cricket volume of the “ Badminton Library,” which consists of over 400 pages, every one of which is rich with instructive reading for cricketers, contains a most interesting description of the first Inter- University cricket match, which comes opportunely just as the two Universities are fighting out the fifty-fourth contest to the bitter end. The account is from the pen of Charles Wordsworth, now Bishop of St. Andrew’s, who was the Oxford captain in 1827, and to whose energy is entirely due the institution of the historic match which has been decided annually at Lord’s for the last fifty years without a break. T h e first fixture, w hich was played at L o rd ’s on June 4, 1827, seem s to have been a one-day affair, and there must have been considerable difficulty in getting up the teams, as the follow in g extract from the B ishop’s account w ill sh ow :— In those ante-railway days it was necessary to get permission from the College authorities to go up to London in term time, and the per­ mission was not readily granted. To take my own case: my conscience still rather smites me when I remember that, in order to gain my end, I had to present myself to the Dean and tell him that I wished to be allowed to go to London—not to play a game of cricket (that would not have been listened to), but to consult a dentist! a iece of Jesuitry which was understood , I elieve, equally well on both sides ; at all events my tutor, Longley, afterwards Arch­ bishop of Canterbury, was privy to it. The venerable Bishop adds : Of the players in the two elevens who con­ tended at Lord’s more than five, it not six, 1 believe, are still living. Who shall say how much the lengthening of their days beyond the ordinary span of our existence here is to be attributed to “ Cricket’s manly toil ? ” I n the second match, played on the Magdalen ground at Oxford in 1829, the home team won by 115 runs, and in the third, seven years later, at Lord’s, Oxford were again victorious by 121. The fourth meeting was in 1838, since which year Lord’shas always been the battlefield. It is worthy of note that up to 1880 only eight of the forty-six fixtures decided were three-days matches. M y regular statistician has kindly furnished me with the averages of the principal batsmen up to Saturday last. I may add that no one is included who has played in less than ten completed inn­ ings, and that the figures are taken from the matches between the nine leading counties— Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Kent, Lancashire, Middlesex, Notts, Surrey, Sussex, and Yorkshire, in addi­ tion to other recognised first-class fix­ tures. Completed Highest Inns. Runs. Score. Aver. W .W .Read ... ... 13 ... 844 .. 338 . . 61.12 Abel ............... ... 14 ... 595 .. 160 . . 42.7 w. G. Grace .. ... 25 ... 958 .. 215 . . 38.8 S. M. J. Woods ... 10 ... 364 .. 79* . . 33.7 Briggs ........ ... 14 ... 469 .. 126* . . 36.4 Painter ......... ... 12 ... 359 .. 150 . . 29.11 H.B. Daft....... ... 11 ... 299 .. 68* . . 27.2 W. W. Rashleigh ... 12 ... 323 .. 56* . . 26.11 G. M. Kemp .. ... 12 ... 314 .. 64 .. 26.2 J. Shutec........ ... 13 ... 338 .. 69 .. 26 M. Read ....... ... 30 ... 253 .. 64 . . 25.3 Lee .............. ... 15 ... 371 .. 83 . . 24.11 J. Hide ........ ... 12 ... 287 .. 180 . . 23.11 J. G. Walker .. ... 16 ... 379 .. 99* .. 23.11 F. H. Gresson.. ... 11 ... 263 .. 114 .. 23.10 J. Eccles....... ... 14 ... 320 .. 97 . . 22.12 Hon. P. J. Thesiger 10 ... 220 ... 68 .. 22 J. A. Dixon .. ... 10 ... 212 ... 83 .. 21.2 Ulyett ........ ... 19 ... 398 ... 82 .. 20.18 F. G.J.Ford .. ... 14 ... 294 .. 81 .. 20.14 E. M. Hadow .. ... 12 ... 247 ... 47* .. 20.7 S. W. Scott .. ... 12 ... 246 .. 121* .. 20.6 Wainwiight .. ... 14 ... 280 .. 105 .. 20.6 T he extension of the Inter-University match over the third day will no doubt cause other C ricket readers, as it has me, to wonder when the last record of a similar kind is to be found in the history of English cricket. There were, of course, plenty of parallel cases in the early days of the game, and I remember well that the match between Sussex with Osbaldeston, and Lambert and Epsom, at Lord’s in 1817, in which Lambert earned the distinction of a record with two scores of a hundred, occupied five days, from July 2 to G. Perhaps some kind corres­ pondent, though, will be able to furnish me with the last instance of an English fixture prolonged beyond the third day prior to this week. C ricket readers one and all will be pleased to hear that success has at last crowned the efforts of the Parsee team. They were not very far off—in fact “ near it, very near it ”—a win in their second fixture at Blackheath, but time just did them there. The cheerless weather pre­ valent since their arrival must have damped their ardour considerably, but they have played up notwithstanding with no small pluck, and it will be gratifying to everybody to find that their cricket, which shows in every way an improvement on the form of the previous