Cricket 1889

“ Toge ther joined in cricket’s m an ly toil.”— B y ro n . No. 200 VOL. VIII. Registered for Transmission Abroad. THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 1889. PRICE 2d. THE ENGLISH TEAM IN SOUTH AFRICA. The doings of theEnglish cricketers who are at the present time touring in South Africa have given rise to a good deal of discussion, and, as it would appear, to no small difference of opinion among those writers whose business it is to deal chiefly or exclusively with sporting matters. The comparative ill success which has attended the Sussex captain, Mr. C. A. Smith, and tlie other cricketers under his charge has, of course, to answer for this divergence. As far as the tour has gone, up to the present time, it must be admitted that those who ventured to predict that the team collected by Major Warton was hardly strong enough all round to meet eighteens or twenty-twos in some, atleast, of the chief cricket centres of South Africa with anything like a certainty of success, have had apparently the best of the argu­ ment. So far, six matches have been played, with what must be termed unsatis­ factory results. Of these six engagements only two have been won, while the others have been lost, so that the team will have the burden of early failures weighing heavily on them, it may be, for some little time. In estimating the results of these preliminary fixtures, we are, though, hardly in accord with the pessimists among the critics, who go so far as to hint that the victories the South African players have won on the cricket field will weaken the moral or political prestige of England on that continent. MajorWarton’s team has never pretended to be in any shape or form representative of English cricket. Mr. C. A. Smith, the captain, as was only natural, spoke hope- lully of the capabilities of his combination attjie luncheon given on board the “ Garth Castle ” by Sir Donald Currie the day before that vessel left London. He was careful, though, to qualify his remarks by the admission that his was only a pioneer team, and that it was consequently in a great measure of an experimental character, The circumstances of the case, no doubt, justified Major "Warton in leavening his team with a more than ordinary proportion of amateurs, and some may urge—there is, indeed, ground for an actual assertion—the all-round cricket available has not proved, as far as the tour has gone up to the present time, quite equal to the task it has been set to accomplish. At the same time, it seems to be unreasonable to argue that the failures of the English cricketers can have any serious effect in undermining the prestige of the English name in South Africa. Everyone at all interested in the game in England would, of pourse, have been infinitely better pleased had our representatives been as fortunate on the cricket-field as they seem to have been off it. On the other hand their reverses only tend to prove that if any mistake has been made at all by those who are responsible for the collection of the English players, it has been that they have hardly been made aware of the im­ provement which seems to have taken place in the cricket in Cape Colony and the outlying districts during the last few years. As a matter of fact the English­ men admit that the cricket they have had to meet has been better than they had ex­ pected to find. In most of the chief centres there are rising players who have learned the game on English grounds, and as to these are to be added not a few by no means inferior all-round players of Colonial birth, it will be seen that there is in many places the nucleus of a strong opposition to face the Englishmen. The names of players like W. H. Milton, the old Marlburian, at Cape Town, O. R. Dunell, of Eton and Oxford, at Port Elizabeth, C. Vintcent, the Old Carthu­ sian, at Kimberley, F. F. Crawford, whilom of Kent, who is stationed, we believe, in Natal just now, will be suffi­ cient to show that there is no lack of likely talent of English extraction scattered over the vast area in which Mr. C. A. Smith and his men will have to perform. Lohmann’s withdrawal from the team in consequence of medical advice, of course, deprived Major Warton of one of his main supports, and when it was found that the services of one of the most effective bowlers English cricket has produced of late years were lost it would have been, no doubt, wiser policy had his place been filled by a bowler of some­ thing like first-class form. The merits of South Afiican cricketers may, and, indeed, • | seem to, have been underrated, and Major Warton’s decision to substitute a profes­ sional like Ulyett in. place of Mr. J. H. Roberts, who was called home suddenly at Christmas time in consequence of his mother’s death, shows that those most interested see the urgency of strengthen­ ing their team by the inclusion of a reli­ able all-round cricketer, one, too, who on his public form, ought to be deadly on pitchesthat do not happen to be of thebest. Ulyett, who left London at the commence­ ment of the year, should by this time be well within reach of the Cape, and in all probability will reach Natal in time for one of the matches to be decided in that colony next month. His assistance will be welcome, and there is every reason to believe that the team will render on the whole an excellent account of them­ selves. The differences of climate and wickets, as well as the great heat, may be held responsible for some of their short-comings in the earlier matches. Mr. Bowden, though his wicket-keeping seems to have been very much above the average, was not in the best of health, and probably some others of the team were affected in the same way. The ill-success that has attended the English players, however, is not without its gratifying side. It is satisfactory to find that cricket in South Africa has developed of late so wonderfully as to bring such an event as this first English tour within the scopeef practical politics. It is pleasant to see that a new field, and one which bids fair from present appearances to be fruitful and rich in its products, has been opened to the enterprise of British cricketers. The community of ideas and interchange of visits between Englishmen and their brethren over the sea cannot fail in the future as it has_ in the past to result in good to the Empire