Cricket 1890

36 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. MAR. 27 1890. CRICKET IN INDIA. From the Pioneer Mail. The news of the hardly won victory of the Parsee cricketers recently brought pleasure probably wherever it travelled. Not that any­ one would wish aught but good luck to Mr. Vernon’s eleven, to whose enterprise we owe much for setting on foot an experiment now sure to be repeated, but because the plucky Parsees have so thoroughly earned success. It is but a few years ago that the spectacle of Indians playing cricket gave rise to the same tempered admiration with which Johnson re­ garded the woman preaching :—“ It is not well done, but you are surprised to see it done at all.” The individual Parsee cricketer was a thing of fluttering skirts and prehensile toes, whose ways both with bat and ball bore obvious siens of independent development; and in cricket, as in rowing, originality is no­ where. The self-taught performer has the worst of teachers. The most promising ex- onents of the Indian school went down efore a moderate station eleven as wheat before the sickle. Nor ever had they pro­ gressed from those small beginnings unless their leaders, with the earnestness and prac­ ticality and go which mark the Parsee com­ munity, had seen that to succeed they must first learn from Englishmen. Straightway a first-class professional was brought over at no little cost-one who could impart to them the mysteries of the rigid right toot and vertical bat. Soon a Zoroastrian eleven is speeding over the main to do battle with Albion’s best. The attempt was premature. We remember seeing it suggested by one newspaper critic that the strangers should get up a match with some Cripples’ Home or Asylum for the Blind. The teamreturnedsaddermen, but wiser. They betook themselves yet more sedulously to prac­ tice. A later expedition to England with a less ambitious programme showed much better re­ sults; and nowthey have achievedthe crowning victory of last Friday. A close victory it cer­ tainly was, but it was fairly won without any particular favours from fortune, excepting only the running out of the English captain, and at any rate it is an achievement that no English Eleven in the country has as yet shown signs of equalling. The Parsees, there­ fore, have every reason to be pleased with themselves, ana we say again their success will please all Englishmen because it has been so well worked for. Apart from the zeal of the playing members, it is evident that the richer men of the community must have co­ operated handsomely to enable the eleven to make tours to England and to come on as it has done. They in fact have contributed only less than the players themselves to the rise of Parsee cricket. It is a pleasant and unique spectacle in India to find a community pulling together in this fashion in amusement and social fellowship as well as in the serious matters oflife,where self-interestmaygenerally furnish the motive andthe bond of union. Not many days before the Parsee victory at Bombay, a feat on a smaller scale, almost equally creditable, had been performed in Upper India. We refer to the defeat by the Aligarh Collegians of a large garrison station like Lucknow, one of those few places in India where there are always to be found eleven men who have cultivated the game from their youth up. Those who have not seen the Aligarh eleven in the field during the last two or three years, will be amazed at the great strides they must have made to bring them, even with all the chances of the game, within distance of winning a match from such oppo­ nents. Two such successes, following each other so quickly, show plainly that Native cricket is no longer to be ignored. On the contrary, given the same rate of progress, it is evident that when the next English eleven visits India, as we may hope it will in another couple of years, and when an All-India eleven is chosen to meet them, several Native cricketers will have to be included, if indeed, by that time the tables are not altogether turned and it becomes aquestion of how many Englishmen can manage to find a place in the representative team. Looking further into the future we may easily conjure up the time when the names and merits of Machliwalla and Moodv, and possibly of Hussein and Hos- sein, will be discussed by an Oval crowd with as much discrimination as those of Murdoch and Bonner. Nor would English players grudge them their successes, for they them­ selves would reap nothing but benefit from such a development of the game. The two great drawbacks which have beset it in India are want of professionals and want of matches —fatal deficiencies which cause every man’s cricket in India to be a course of certain and more or less rapid deterioration. But if cricket really took hold of the country, every Club would be able to keep its ground bowlers, and practice would once more become a pleasure. Moreover matches would become lentiful at once: and not only would there e a standing rivalry at every large place between the station and the city clubs, but with the combined elevens to draw upon, inter-station matches would be arranged with the certainty of coming off, instead of the only certainty being, as now, that two or three members of the outgoing team will throw up their places at the last moment, and deprive the game of half its interest, if indeed it can be played at all. In short, the future of Indian cricket seems to be in the hands of the Indians. All this may seem to be talking in rather a serious way of what is after all mere play and amusement. And no doubt in England, as many an Anglo-Indian parent must discover to his cost, the tendency of our system is to make too much of these things : to lift them into undue importance. The public school­ master finds that his house gains more by a boy who is captain of an eleven, than by one who climbs to the top of the sixth. The headmaster finds that a strong eleven brings him more recruits than a Balliol scholarship or a Porson prize. College authorities relax their matriculation standards that their foundation may have the distinction of enroll­ ing a youth who “ comes up ” with a reputa­ tion as a bat or an oar. The paths of the young athlete are pleasant: but it is not to be questioned that the current way of looking at things involves many hard re-adjustments in after life, and that a scheme of education which regulates theways of allby the standard of what may be suitable for the few who have not got to make their way in the world has its drawbacks, for parents especially. But speak­ ing for Indian youth one is in no danger of exaggerating the importance and the good of sports. With low physical spirits, and early introduced to the cares of life by premature marriage, the native student’s fault is never likely to be the exaggeration of amusements. Pursuing his education, in which he rarely finds much interest for its own sake, with desperate seriousness, his recreations are sedentary and dyspeptic, and do little to correct the narrowness of interests, which is the characteristic of the Indian, whether he is a Kaja, a trader, a country gentleman or a olitician—and which is the real reason why e is not socially a companion for the Euro­ pean, nor the European for him. The Govern­ ment vaguely recognises this, and in its clumsy way issues rules about “ physical exercises ” in its schools side by side with the moral text book, and about on a par with it for utility. But a real interest in cricket— the only national English game we can hope to introduce in India—springing up spon­ taneously might do much to counteract the faults of our educational system ; and it is for this reason we welcome the spirit in whioh it has been taken up by the Parsees as a good omen andexample. Cricket successfully culti­ vated means the possession of a certain amount of prosperity, leisure, and high spirits in the society which cultvates it—all excellent and cheerful things to find existing in this some­ what gloomy land. If the educated youth of India were to take to cricket by day, and, in moderation, to claret by night, we should soon hear the last of such dismal amusements as the Congress. KENSINGTON PARK CLUB. The thirty-second Annual General Meeting of this Club was held on Friday, Feb. 28,at the Great Western Hotel. There was a large numberofmembers present,andMr.H.W.Price, vice-president, occupied the chair. The report showed a satisfactory record for the past season—of 35 matches played,only 8 were lost. The number of new members who joined in 1889 was 48, as against 33 in the previous year; the total number of members on the books being now 235. All the officers of the Club were re-elected with the exception of Mr. Montague Barron,who after 28 years’ valuable service on the Committee resigned, owing to pressure of other matters, much to the regret of the members generally. Captain Orman was elected to fill the vacancy. Dr. Kiallmark, the treasurer, submitted a favourable balance sheet, a surplus in hand. A full list of matches was submitted by Mr. D’Oyly Brooks, the Secretary, and a vote of thanks to the officers of the Club was proposed and carried. SOUTH SAXONS CLUB. F ixtu r e s fo r 1890. May 14—Hastings, v. Alexandra. May 26—Willingdon, v. Willingdon. May 31—St. Leonard’s, v. South Lynn. June 4—St. Leonard’s, v. Robertsbridge. June 7—St. Leonard’s, v. Brighton. June 14—St. Leonard’s, v. Brighton College. June 19—St. Leonard’s, v. Crowhurst. June 21—St. Leonard’s, v. Willingdon. June 25—St, Leonard’s, v. Alexandra. June 27 and 28—St. Leonard’s, v. Eastbourne. July 5—Eastbourne, v. South Lynn. July 9—Robertsbridge, v. Robertsbridge. July 10—St. Leonard’s, v. Cinque Port Wanderers. July 16—St. Leonard’s, v. Co.veston. July 18 and 19—St. Leonard’s, v. Oxford University Authentics. July 25 and 26—St. Leonard’s, v. Bickley Park. August 4 and 5—St. Leonard’s, v. London Ramblers. August 11 and 12—St. Leonard’s, v. Chiswick Park. Augu8tl3 and 14 - St. Leonard’s, v. Charlton Park. August 15 and 16—St. Leonard’s, v. Kensington. August 18 and 19—Eastbourne, v. Eastbourne. August 22 and 23—St. Leonard’s, v. Dulwich. August 25 and 26—St. Leonard’s, v. Crystal Palace. August 29 and 30—St. Leonard’s, v. M.C.C. September 2—Brighton, v. Brighton. September 3 and 4—St. Leonard’s, v. Blue Mantles. PERIPATETICS (0. & C.) CLUB. F ix t u r e s fo r 1890. April 17—Annual Club Dinner in London. May 24—v. Christ’s College, Finchley. May 26 to 31—Cambridge, v. Clare, King’s, Peter’s, Christ’s, and Caius Colleges. May 30—Club Dinner at Cambridge. June 2 to 7—Oxford, v. Keble, Pembroke, Merton, B.N.C., Worcester, and A.N.O. Colleges. June 6—Club Dinner at Oxford. June 11—v. Highgate School. June 14—v. Blackheath School. June 18 and 21—Open. June 25—v. Willesden. June 28—v. Totteridge Park. Ju y 5—v. Chiswick Park. July 9—v. Ealing. July 16—v. Holmesdale C.C. July 19—v. St. Paul’s School. July 26—Open. July 28 and 29—v. Upper Tooting. August 2—v. Streatham. August 4 to 11—Cambridge Long Week. August 12 and 13—v. Gents, of County of Hunts. August 18 to 23—Eastbourne Week. August 23-Peripatetic A.D.C. at Eastbourne. To T h e D e a f .—A Person cured of Deafness and noises in the head of 23 years’ standing by a simple remedy, will send a description of it F r e e to any Person who applies to N ich olson BedTord Square, London. W C.— A d v t . NEXT ISSUE, APRIL 17.