Cricket 1892

AUG. 25, 1892 CRICKET: A WEEKLY EE COED OF THE GAME. 889 but for the fact that it has inspired a playful C r ic k e t reader to indulge in some humour at my expense. Still the fun is so harmless, and, moreover, in such a pleasant vein, that I venture to reproduce my correspondent’s postoard verbatim :— August 18, 1892. C r ic k e t , August 18, 1892, Page 373. E xtract:— “ H o lla n d .........................hitting a ball from Mr. Taberer, started to run, and was very properly given out by the umpire.” Oh ! was Le ? and “ very properly ” too. I suppose if he had started to run without first hitting the ball he would have been “ in.” E dgar . Mea culpa, Edgar. I t appears after all that the match between I Zingari and Bullingdon, to which I referred last week, is not the only one which has furnished four instances of a hundred in the same innings. Mr. W . W . K. Robinson, of Holmwood, 99, Stamford Hill, reminds me of a similar performance in a match between Thornbury and Wotton-under-Edge on June 18th, 1888. On that occasion Thornbury made 645 for five wickets, including scores of 145 by E. M. Grace, 104 by A. H. Grace, 199 by C. J. Robinson, and 128 by T. Robin­ son. I t is worthy of remark, as showing the run-getting propensities of the Thornbury team just at the time, that on the following day they scored 396 for five wickets, making a total of 1,041 for ten wickets for the two days. In the first of these two matches, Thornbury’s performance is curiously like that of Mr. A. P. Lucas’ Eleven at Chelmsford last week. In each case, indeed, there were four scores of a hundred with only five wickets down. T he near approach of September is a forcible reminder that we are well within hail of the last important function of the cricket year, the Hastings and St. Leonards week. Though the youngest gathering of the kind—at least of any influence, the enter­ prise of the management has gained for it a popularity second to none. Every year, too, brings with it additional experience, and there is every resason to predict that the Festival will be as successful as the best of its predecessors. T he names of the players in tho two matches, which are given below, will be a guarantee that the cricket will be of good quality and full of interest. Still, at the risk of being hypercritical, one cannot help an expression of regret that the names of Shrewsbury, the most successful batsman, and Lockwood, the best bowler of the year, should be absent from the list of players ;— N o r th v . S o u t h .— Sept. 8th, 9th, 10th.— North.— Messrs. S . M. Crosfield, F. S. Jackson, A. T. Kemble, 0. W. Wright, with Attewell, Chatterton, Gunn, Peel, Pougher, Ulyett, and A. Ward. South:— Messrs. W. G. Grace, J. J. Ferris, H. T. Hewett, T. C. O’Brien, W. W . Read, A. E. Stoddart, S. M. J. Woods, with Abel, Loh­ mann, Martin, and Wood. G e n tl e m e n v . P l a y e r s .— Sept. 12th, 13 th, 14th.—Gentlemen .—Messrs. W. G. Grace, S. M. Crosfield, J. J. Ferris, H. T. Hewett, F. S. Jaokson, A. T. Kemble, T. C. O’Brien, W. W. Read, A. E. Stoddart, S. M. J. Woods, and C.W. Wright. Players : —Abel, Attewell, Bean, Chatterton, Gunn, Lohmann, Martin, Peel, Ulyett, A. Ward, and Wood. T he Surrey Captain, as every one knows, is fully alive to every possible move of the game which can conduce towards a definite settlement of a match. His idea, and rightly so, is that the great object is to win a game even with the alternative of risk­ ing a defeat, rather than to allow the play, like linked sweetness, to be long drawn out with the only probable solution, the poor satisfac­ tion of an undecided game. But the papers, I ’am inclined to think, are inolined to attri­ bute to him deep laid schemes of which be is innocent. To gather from the reports of the batting of the Surrey tail against Gloucester­ shire at Cheltenham last Friday, it would appear as if they had been hitting to order to bring the match to as early a conclusion a s possible. The policy I fear existed nowhere except in the vivid imagination of the reporter. It was something of a “ nebulous hypothesis,” in fact. T he Surrey batsmen who got into disfavour with the critical assemblage at Lord’s be­ cause for once the majority were unable to score fast in the face of the exceptionally good bowling of Middlesex have at all events just lately returned to old habits of gentle tapping. Their first innings against Lancashire at the Oval, this week, produced more than one conspicuous instance of good hitting. Lock­ wood, who made 23 out of 27 while he was in, sent a ball from Briggs into thepavilion, break­ ing one of the windows into splinters. But there was a double performance of Mr. Shuter and Lohmann, which even outdid this. In quick succession the two batsmen each landed a ball from Briggs over the seats in front of the football pavilion. Both hits were measured, with the result that Lohmann’s came to 120 yards, and Mr. Shuter’s 115 yards at the pitch. The latter, though not so high, was much the harder crack of the two, and indeed the ball was travelling at a tremendous pace. S ome rapid scoring was brought off recently on the Old Kensington Park ground, in the match between B. H. Goldie’s eleven and the Kensington Park Club, to the great delight of K.P.’s popular Secretary, O. D. Brooks, and the members and spectators present. The visitors had scored 171 runs as their total, to “ knock off” which the K.P.C. sent in M. A. Nicholas and H. C. Levick. The batsmen had only an hour and five minutes in which to make the runs, and by most spirited gentle tapping they had put on 155 runs, when time —the settler of all mundane affairs—closed the match as drawn. The score book recorded Nicholas (not out) 70, Leviok (run out) 61, leaving to imagination—as “ R.T.” says— which had the best of it. Mr. R. K. C a u sto n , whose devotion to the Liberal cause has earned him promotion to the position of a Junior Lord of the Treasury, will be known to many C r ic k e t readers as a loyal subject of Willow the King. Until very recently, even if he does not now assist them, he played for the Incogniti. In the midst of his duties at the House of Commons, he has never lost an opportunity of an hour’s recreation at the Oval, in witnessing good cricket. There are, indeed, few keener sup­ porters of the game anywhere. T hat a mastership at a public school does not affect anyone prejudicially in first-class cricket, has been proved times out of number. Kent has conspicuous instances at the present time in two batsmen who have been just lately singularly successful. J. Le Fleming—who,by the way, is not the hurdler— the high scorer of the Sussex match at Brighton this week, is an Old Tonbridgian, who subsequently got his blue as a Rugby footballer at Cambridge. He is now a master at Tonbridge School. H. C. Stewart, of the Blackheath Club, who has been scoring well in the more recent fixtures of Kent, has also a mastership—at Lancing College. He was educated first at Magdalen College School, and subsequently at Magdalen College itself. “ MODERN CRICKET.” The Silly Season’s here again (The cricket ditto’s on the wane), And on the Daily Telegraph The rarely non-resourceful staff Find i% copy ” running rather short, And so exploit our summer sport. Historians have rambled on most pleasantly of Hambledon— Ah ! could those old-time heroes re-appear, They’d ope their eyes surprisedly, and stare (yes, stare advisedly) At the spread of “ modern cricket ” far and near. Astronomers are all agog, And journalism gives a jog To flagging interest in stars, For coming close to Earth is Mars. W ill “ modern cricket’s ” enterprise Send teams on tour athwart the skies ? In circles astronomical the query may sound comical, But shall we shortly meet newspaper pars Be astral cricket fallacies ? Or scores and full analysis Of Middlesex or Surrey versus Mars ? C.P. A g o o d friend in Toronto has sent me an account of a noteworthy performance in a match there on the fifth of this month. The Toronto C.C. were playing the London, Asylum, and the former, who went in first, were disposed of for a total of 71. The Rev. F. W. Terry and Dr. Beemer were sent in to open the batting for the Asylum, and so well did they perform that at the call of time both were still in, with the total 186 for no wicket. Terry scored 112, and Beemer 70, and there were four extras. This large score of 186 runs for no wicket down constitutes a record as jar as Canadian cricket is concerned. F. W . Terry, who played for Oxford University and the County of Somerset before going out to Canada, has been in rare form with the willow lately. During the past fortnight he has scored 71 not out, 78, and 112 not out respectively. Besides doing well with the bat, he is equally good behind the stumps, and has scarcely an equal in Canada as a wicket­ keeper. S u r r e y , as the following table will show, is now one point ahead of Notts in the com ­ petition for the premiership of County cricket, though the latter has a match in hand. The completion of the Kent match this week at the Oval will finish Surrey’s season, while Notts has to meet Lancashire