Cricket 1890

SEPT. 25, 1890. CBICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OP THE GAME; 431 SU T TO N v. MR. V IE L L A R D ’S TEAM . Played at Denmark H ill on Sept. 20. S u tto n . H. Hyslop, b Veillard 0 E. Mawer, c E., b A. Griffiths.................14 S. Chambers, b Fin- linson .................39 A. N. Town, b Jones 0 J. N. Quinn, cDavies, b Veillard .......... 6 F. H. Blades, b Rider.......... ..........12 E. T. Warner, c Veil- lart?, b Hobbs ... 10 L. Blades, c Veillard, b Rider ................. A. Ellis, b Veillard... E. G. Blades, c A. Griffiths, b Veil­ lard ........................ J. Seaar, not out ... G. Blades,cJacobson, b Rider ................. B 16, lb 1, w 2 ... OUIi VILLAGE CEICKET CLUB. C. J. Jones, b Cham­ bers ........................ F. J. Finlinson, b Mawer ................. A. R. Hobbs,b Cham­ bers ........................ J. Davis, b Mawer ... T. Clarke, b Mawer... L. Spurling.b Mawer F. Odell, b Cnambers E. C. Griffiths, b Chambers .......... Total M r . VEiiiiiARD’s T e a m . ...117 A. A. Griffiths, b Quinn ................. 0 F. P. Rider.c Hyslop, b Chambers..........16 A. E. Veillard, b Quinn ................. 0 T. O. Jacobson, not out ........................ 0 B ........................ 3 Total , 69 F R E E FO R E ST E R S v. ISLAND OF JER SEY . Played on the V ictoria College Ground on September 6 . F r e e F o r e ster s . M. C. Kemp, c Lush- ington, b Hornby... 0 J. A. Turner, b Hornby .................14 F. H. Capron, c Taylor, b Hornby... 8 F. M. Ingram, Hornby ................. 6 E. H. Buckland, b Nuttall .................21 F. M. Buckland, c Amos, b Atkinson 62 W. E. W. Collins, b Atkinson....................21 I sland of J er se y . K. McAlpine, b Atkinson ..........33 W. D. Bovill, not out ........................12 C. W. M. Kemp, b H orn by...................18 J.Senior, c Simpson, b Hornbv .......... 3 B 12, lb 4, w l... 17 Total......... 212 First Innings. E. P. Taylor, run out H. Atkinson, b Collins . Capt. Simpson, c and b Turner.............................. 7 H. Hornby, b Collins ... 6 C. Amos, b Turner ......... 5 M. Nuttall, b Turner ... 0 T. Craigie, b Turner........ 2 Capt. Prendergast, c In­ gram, b Turner ......... 6 c H. Lushington, c Turner, b C ollin s....................... 6 H. Craigie, not out ........ 1 E. F. Oakley, b Turner ... 0 B 12, nb 4 ..............16 Second Innings. Bt M. C. Kemp, b Ingram ruu out .......... b Ingram ... b Ingram ... b Capron ... not out Coliins, Capron ... n ot ou t 3 7, lb 2 Total ... ... 53 Total ... 53 F R E E FO R E STE R S v. ISLAND OF GUERNSE Y. Played at Fort George on September 1 and 2. F r e e F o r e s te r s . M. C. Kemp, c Nay­ lor, b Le Mesurier 26 J. A. Turner, st Nay­ lor, b Le Mesurier 25 F. W. Capron, b M aturin.................46 F. M, Buckland, b M aturin.................29 K. McAlpine, c Sloman, b Maturin 24 W. E. W. Collins, c Le Lievre, b Carey C. W. M. Kemp, b Carey .................11 W. D. Bovill, c and b Le Mesurier.......... F. Sandeman, b Le Mesurier................. F. N. Ingram, c Bigge b Carey ... H. Rowley, not out... B 7, It) 3, w 3 ... 13 Total ...........209 I sland of G u ern sey . First Innings. Second Innings 1 not out ...........14 3 run out ...........20 2 b Collins .........47 H. Wilkinson, b Collins... Sergt. Simmons, b Collins A. Le Mesurier, b Collins Rev. A. Le Lievre, c and b Turner ........................ 3 G. Carey, b Turner......... 1 F. C. Bigge, b Turner ... 1 Col. Maturin, c and b Collins ................. •• 0 b Bovill Sergt. Naylor, c Ingram, b Collins ........................ 6 b Collins Lieut. G. Cooper, c Collins, b T urner.......... 0 Capt. Sloman, not out ... 3 W. Mintorn, b Collins 0 B 11, n b 3 .................14 c and b Turner 12 b C ollins ............ c Rowley, t Buckland ... 14 [F rom the St. James ’ Budget of Sept. 20.] Total •• •• «• 34 c McAlpine, b Buckland b Bovill .......... lbw, b Buckland B13,lb2,w3,nb4 22 Total ,,,139 A good many things m ilitate against the success of cricket in our village. First of all, as there is no village green, the club cannot commence operations till the hay is cut, which throws us back a good deal. In the second place, cricket is an exotic plant in Bumble- ford Parva. Skittles and wrestling are the native sports, and it is not easy to disabuse the native m ind of its prejudice in their favour. Last, but not least, cricket comes to us in a slightly moral, as well as a foreign, garb. Most of the patrons of the clubs in our neighbourhood support them for ulterior motives. They want indirectly to soften the rustic manners ; and taking one consideration w ith another, though the secretary of an ordinary cricket club has a good deal to think about and arrange, his is a bed of roses com ­ pared with the one I occupy as captain and hon. secretary of the Bumbleford Parva Club. The club could not be carried on for a week but for the friendly aid and advice I get from the parish clerk. Thanks to his confidential relations with the classes, and profound knowledge of the thoughts and feelings of the masses, in the village, it is generally possible when we have a match to select the eleven in a manner commanding general approval. But it is not an easy task. First of all a com pro­ mise has to be effected between three opinions—m y own, shared by our best players, that as a club we ought to put our eleven best players into the field; the clerk’s, shared by several influential ratepayers, that as a parish we ought to be represented by the eleven most influential ratepayers or their nom inees; and a third view, entertained by a liberal subscri­ ber, that as the club should be made popular at all costs, a villager who, as sometimes happens, declines to join unless he is allowed to play in the matches, ought to be allowed to play in the matches. It further happens that feeling runs high in our village on many points wholly unconnected with cricket, all of which, however, have to be taken into account. One instance will suffice. Opinions still differ as to the merits of a certain historic quarrel over the m ending of a wheelbarrow, which ended in John Venni- combe, alias Carpenter John, county-courting John Pennacott, alias Farm er John early, in the spring of 1885; but there is no room for difference of opinion as to the inadvisability of asking them to play on the same side. It was tried once in an important match. The parish clerk was against the experim ent, and the parish clerk was right. Carpenter John, our best wicket-keeper, deliber­ ately ran out Farm er John, who is one of our best bats, before he had had a ball. Farmer John’s vengeance was equally disastrous to our side. First of all, he nearly murdered Carpenter John by the terrific and wholly unnecessary violence with which he returned the ball from short-leg ; and when I m oved him to long-off the catches he dropped cost us even more runs than his overthrows, which is saying a good deal. This, however, is only the seamy side of cricket in Bumbleford Parva. Fortunately, it has another side which is not seamy at all — far from it. Our matches are capital fun, keenly and good-naturedly played, and the humours of them are infinite to any one who has played crioket elsewhere and enjoys see­ ing variations on the style he has been accus­ tomed to, The rustic umpire is an unfailing source of amusem ent; but when except in Bumbleford Parva did an umpire ever propose to stand close to point, and ask to be shown the rule which prevented his doing so if he chose ? No copy of the rules was forthcom ing, but we persuaded him to follow the usual cou rse; and the gymnastics he indulged in whenever the batsman showed any signs of hitting to leg did him great credit. In this case the umpire gave his reasons publicly. H e objected to square-leg as the m ost dangerous place in the field. The Bumbleford Parva umpire, who comm enced a m atch by no-balling our opponents’ bowler twenty-three times con­ secutively, refused to state his reasons to any one but myself. H is objection was that the bowler had never once put either foot across the line. Had I not taken his place, I suppose the over never would have been finished, or the match, which we won thanks to the no­ balls, really begun. N or are the performances of our players much less eccentric than those of our umpire. One prom inent represen­ tative of the rate-paying element, a very saving, long-headed farmer, attempts to put the bowler out by taking fresh guard every ball. Another regards trying to make a hit as tempting fortune rashly, but if leg-byes were scored to the batsman his average would be one of our best. N ot being a skittle-player myself, I cannot say how far the peculiarities of the Bumbleford Parva bowling may be traced to hereditary skittle- playing influences. It is underhand and is very fast, and it is very, very straight, and strangers find it m ost deadly. The natives, on the other hand, soon learn how to hit a straight daisy-cutter to square-leg, which proves that a local school of bowling may give rise to a local school of batting. Our fielding also differs a good deal from that generally seen at Lord’s or the Oval. W e have a way of stopping hard hits with the heels of our boots, which is very neat and effective. N othing, again, delights m ost of m y team so much as seeing a ball hit high in the air, unless it is likely to fall near them. Some of them decline even to attempt a hard catch. They argue that as they cannot manage them, never could, and are never likely to be able to, the less they meddle with them the better. If they wait to take the ball first hop, they are pretty sure of stopping it, and so saying runs. This, though plausible, is pusillanimous, and contrasts very unfavour­ ably with the dashing performance of our cover- point. H e tries every catch, but in a fashion of his own. B y some extraordinary chance he once held a brilliant catch low down with his left hand. H is ambition is to repeat the S erformance, and whenever a catch comes is way he manoeuvres so as to get at it with his left hand low down. This is a difficult matter to arrange, and as our cover-point is a particularly fat man there is a good deal of the acrobat gone to seed about his perform ­ ance. In brief, to enjoy the post of captain of the Bum bleford Parva Eleven one has con­ stantly to be rem inding oneself that cricket, after all, is only a game, and that, provided both sides enjoy themselves, it does not matter which wins, or why. My only fear is that som e day we shall have a serious acci­ dent. V ery few of our people understand the art of running. They will carry their bats in the air, look behind them , and run across the pitch. The worst result of the collisions that have occurred so far has been that one of the colliding parties, who have stopped, as they generally do, to exchange apologies and chat the matter over, has found him self run out. Unless m y team reform , some day there must com e a collision, of which the reporters will say that it threw a gloom over the pro­ ceedings, and which m ay, perhaps, perma­ nently wreck m y present hopes of developing the game of cricket in Bum bleford Parva. Footballs. This < - c g b « - Brand VV " Vl IS ABSOLUTELY THE BEST NEXT ISSUE, OCTOBER 30

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