Cricket 1889

SEPT. 19,1889. C R IC K E T :'A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 418 T IIE M EET ING OF THE SEASONS . Mr. Ed itor, let me enquire W ha t Beason is this we now reach ? Is it orioket or football, dear sir ? Or both of the two, I beseech ? F or one day as I strolled th iough the park A football behind m e arose, And lifted me clean off m y legs, W h ile a cricket ball h it m y poor nose. And I ask, as I lie on m y back, And at orioket and football I groan, “ Is S eptember the season for both , Or for one o f those pastimes alone ? ” H . S. M r . D avid S cott , of the well-known firm of Boyle and Scott, of Melbourne, who is in the very best position to furnish reliable intelligence with regard to the qualifications of the Australian cricketers who are to visit England next summer, informs me that the team will be, to use a familiar style of phraseology, “ a very warm one.” The combination which is to represent GreaterBritain will,he thinks, make a bold bid for the ashes. Though it will be a week or two before he will be in a position to commence the work of preparing a programme, I am assured that the secretary of the Surrey County Club, to whom, as of late years, has been entrusted the general arrangement of the tour, has already had a very large number of applications for fixtures, and the only difficulty for the Australians will be one of selection. I t will no doubt be a satisfaction to English cricketers, in face of the positive announcements that the great batsman, W. L. Murdoch, will not only accompany but captain the coming team, to learn that his eyesight at least is as good as ever. Only recently, in a pigeon shooting competition, he proved this beyond a doubt, bringing down no less than twenty- one birds in succession. B onnor ’ s departure from England, which, by the way, I was alone in announcing, was evidently as great a surprise to his friends on the other side as it was here. At least as a correspondent located in Melbourne informs me, the cricketers of Victoria were altogether unprepared for his return, and his arrival in that city furnished cricket circles there with a topic for conversation of a quite unexpected character. My informant tells me that he was in rare fettle after the voyage, in fact as hard as the proverbial nails. The following announcement, taken from the first column of the Daily Tele­ graph of Monday, will be of interest to Cricket readers:— K e y .— On the 11th inst., at Nevern Square, London , the w ife o f K . J. Key o f a daughter. Mr. Key’s name, in this particular case, was not unassociated with cricket, for in the list of marriages, a few lines lower down, was a peculiarly happy combina­ tion, John Kaye Batten to Elizabeth, daughter of Col. W. D. B. Ketchen. E nglish cricketers will be glad to learn that the advance party of the Philadelphians, whose departure from Liverpool I noticed at the time some mont s since, were not allowed to set foot again on American soil without a cordial reception. The party,which consisted of Capt. Newhall, and Messrs. Clark, Mor­ gan, Stoever, Palmer and the brothers H. I. and B. D. Brown, as has been before stated, left England in the City o f Paris, whic arrived at New York on Augu t 28th, after the fastest Westward trip on record (5 days, 19 hours and 18 minutes). They were met down the bay by a delegation of their friends and given a hearty welcome home. The American Cricketer of Sept. 12 adds, “ The Canadianmatchwill be played at Nicetown probably on Sept. 15 and following days, and the United States side will be chosen as soon as it is known how many of the tourists will get home in time to be available.” I n the competition for the Halifax Cup, whioh carries with it the Championship of Philadelphian cricket, four matches have yet to be decided. So far sixteenmatches have been played, with the result that Germantown is in front. That club has six wins to its credit, against one defeat. Germantown is in the lead with six victories and one defeat, and has yet to finish its match with Merion, stopped by rain July 4th, at Ardmore, when Geiman- town had 33 runs with two wickets down. Merion and Belmont have tied lor second place with four victories and two defeats ; Merion has still to play Belmont and finish the Germantown match as above stated ; while Belmont has to play Merion and Young America. There is a possi­ bility for either of the two last named to win, but the chances are greatly in favour of Germantown carrying off the prize. For the Batting Cup, Geo. S. Patterson leads with an average of 87.83 in five innings, followed by J. S. Clark, 27.66, in six innings, and Walter Scott, 27 in five innings. All the above three were over here with the Gentlemen of Phila­ delphia this summer. For the bowling prize, S. Law leads with 5.30. followed by S. Welsh with 6.36, and C. Coates, 6.54. Of course, these figures are liable to be changed by the matches to bo played this fall. C ingalese cricket has recently followed the example of some of its more preten­ tious rivals, and gone in for the distinc - tion of breaking all its previous records, at least so far as one particular ground is concerned. Up to five years ago the Colombo team made 281 against a team from Galle, and this has remained the highest score on the Galle Face ground until last month. It was the lot of the Colombo Club to again secure the biggest total in the shape of 300 against the Nondescripts on Aug. 17. The names of more than one of the twenty-two com­ petitors, which are to be found in another part of the paper, will be familiar to English oricketers. George Yanderspar, unless I am mistaken, was captain of the Wellington College Eleven several years ago, and in M. H. Paine I fancy one can identify the old Bradfieldian, who subse­ quently earned distinction in another branch of outdoor sports as the Oxford Quarter Miler, who won at the Inter- University Sports in 1884, and ran a dead heat with H. C. L. Tindall for second place in 1885. E ven at the risk of being indicted as a common nuisance for venturing to refer to the vexed question of the County Championship, a subject of which I should fancy most cricketers were thoroughly tired, I feel bound to face such a penalty. The oldest of the sporting dailies seems to be eminently pleased at the result of its invocation to its readers, and much gratified at the fact that of some six thousand enthusiasts who responded to its appeal, a large majority has expressed approval of the way in which it placed the three leading Counties on this season’s form. B ut even assuming such expression to be of any value, which, of course, it is not, I would still submit that the main point has been altogether ignored in stating the case. Personally, I have only taken one position, and that I venture to think can­ not be shaken. Everyone may have his own opinions on the respective merits of the three Counties who have provided such a rare amount of useful material for the sporting journals, but they have no bearing on the real question at issue. F or purposes of their own, the news­ papers have instituted of late years a scale of points by which the merits of the different Counties can be as3esed, and it certainly does seem very illogical, when a case presents itself as it has this year where more than one of the competitors are equal in points, that the principal of assessment which has been recognised for the past year or two should be ignored. I am not arguing whether the basis of competition is fair or not. It ruled the positions last year, though, and if it can be improved by all means let it be altered. It is absurd to object to the system at the end of a season, and if amendment be thought advisable it should be made before or at the commencement of next summer. The crux of the whole thing is, that, according to the system adopted lately by the newspapers gen­ erally, Notts, Lancashire, and Surrey each are entitled to ten and a half points as a result of an analysis of this year’s results, and to be consistent those who have adopted such basis of calculation cannot part them. Indeed, the voice of the press generally has expressed itself unhesitatingly and unmistakably that the three Counties cannot fairly be separated.