Cricket 1893

JULY 2?, 1898 CRICKET; A WEEKLY RECORD OP THE GAME* 805 BOW LING ANALYSIS. S ussbx . W ells ... 56 LocKwood 26 Brockw ell 37 Sharpe ... 21 W .W .Read 6 A b el........... 7 M. Read ... 5 First Innings. O. M. R. W. 6 65 2 11 17 12 3 62 60 Second Innings. O. M. R. W. . ... 11.2 3 23 1 . ... 25 5 103 ~ .................86 .................28 ................. 3 ................. 4 .................. 3 Baldwin 3 S urrey . First Innings. O. M. R. W. Second Innings. 0 . M. R. W . Lowe ... 10 3 T ate...........21 9 Guttridge 21 2 H’m phreys 25.2 4 "Wilson ... 12 5 Bean ... 18 7 5 , 18.3 . 18 . 5 REMINISCENCES OF CRICKET B y RICHARD DAFT. A V eteran C ricketer . William Mee, the father of R. J. Mee, the fast bowler of the Notts eleven, is one of the oldest oricketers whom I have played with of late years. Mee, for many years has followed the trade of a professional bowler and coach. He was for many years engaged at Bedford School, and is this year fulfilling an engage­ ment at a School at Leamington. As he generally has finished his professional duties by the first week in August, he is at liberty to play in the local matches which take place in the vicinity of his home in Nottinghamshire. And it is then that I have the satisfaction of having him on my side in the matches I take part in during the latter part of the season. And a most useful man he is to have on one’ s side too. Mee is a medium pace bowler, with a very quick break-back, and has a wonderful command over the ball, and can keep on peg­ ging away all day on one spot almost. He is a giant in stature, standing six feet four inches high, and as he has a very high delivery as well, he is able to make the ball get up a great height from the pitch if the wicket is at all inclined to be fiery. It is a strange fact that Mee is a better bowler in these his latter days than he was when a young man. He had reached the age of forty before he had attained his best as a bowler, and now as he is nearing the fifties is bowling as well as ever. This may be accounted for by the way he has taken care of him­ self, by the easiness of his delivery, and by his being very spare of flesh and having no superfluous •*lumber ” to carry, He is the only bowler I have known who keeps his own analysis mentally while playing. After a long innings he can always tell you how many runs have been scored off his bowling. Many a match has he pulled out of the fire, for as one in particular, I well remember when our side were dismissed for the small score of 60 odd runs. Yet when the other side went in o knock off this small total, so excellently did the veteran Mee bowl that they were all out for little more than forty, nine of the wickets falling to his bowling. When playing for my eleven at Skegness against Skegness and district year before last, the greater part of the bowling fell to the lot of George Loh­ mann and old Mee, and strange to say Mee’ s analysis was better than that of the great Surrey bowler, although it is but right to say that George “ speculated ” to a great extent with the local batsmen, as runs were no object to us at the close of the match, but we were greatly pressed for time, and were eventually robbed of the victory owing to the really good batting of “ Sholy ” Harrison of Yorkshiie, who had been engaged to play against us. This match I have cause to remember. We won the toss, and went in to bat, Lohmann having wired us that he had missed his train and could not get to the ground till nearly five o’clock in the afternoon. I made the top score myself, and was in with our last man at four o clock, and all our side were hoping that he would remain with me till Lohmann arrived on the scene, though this was almost too much to expect. But it so turned out that he stayed at the wickets till the great Surrey cricketer arrived on the ground, changed his clothes, and looked on at the game for twenty minutes or more after doing so. Our tail end man was got out at about 5.30, and when Lohmann came to me at the wickets I was rapidly approaching my century, and our side were now confident of a long stand being made before the innings came to a close. But alas! as we have so often experienced, in such like cases, down went my wicket almost before the Surrey crack had been able to have half-a-dozen balls and I had to be satisfied with a score of seven short of the coveted “ three figures.” But I am forgetting old Mee all this time, and may say, in conclusion, that he has another son a fast bowler, a year older than R. J., who is this year engaged at Bradfield College, Reading. Both the young ones are considerably above the average height, but dwindle into insigni­ ficance when seen by the side of their gigantic father. The Mees reside at a little village called Shelford, four miles from the nearest railway station, and ifc is no unusual thing for these hardy village cricketers to carry a heavy cricket bag with them to Rad­ cliffe station on the morning of a match, and to carry it back again after a day’s play, often arriving home in the dead of night. Such training goes to make a man not afraid of hard work at all events. It is quite easy for us in Nottingham to make up a team in which there are three fathers, each with two sons, in its ranks. Mee. senior, with his two sons, C. W. and R. J., Mr. William Wright with his two sons, G.W . and C.E.. and myself, with my two, R.P. and H.B. This is rather curious, when it is remembered that every one of the players I have named is playing cricket regularly two or three times a week during the season, and would not have to be “ trotted out ” specially for such a match. I remember once when playing against the three Mees when R. J. was bowling, and our men were scoring rapidly, one of the spectators (an old veteran of 80) called out “ Jack, put yer feyther on.” On another occasion, when playing at a Derby­ shire village, Mee, senior, was bowling and had been very destructive. Ons of the bats­ men then in’showed an inclination to leave his ground and drive, when a friend among the onlookers called out “ Tom, my lad, thou munna du that to owd ‘ May,* he’s sure to get thee; he’ s a sly owd beggar. Ye mun plee him stiddy ” Tom, however, neglected to take his friend’s advice, and succumbed to the wiles of the Shelford giant in the next over. G eorge A tkinson . At Shrewsbury’ sbenefit match I had the plea­ sure of seeing, after a lapse of many years, my old friendGeorgeAtkinson,who on this occasion was acting as umpire. I was delighted to see him look so well. George was, as is well- known, one of the crack bowlers of the “ shire of bowlers,” as Yorkshire has been called, in days of old. He was besides an excellent singer. One song (a Swiss one), of which I forget the name, he was particularly clever at. I have a curious old photograph of George, in which he appears holding a ball; his cap he has taken off his head and for some reason or other has carefully placed it on the ground near his feet. George is a fine looking old fellow to-day, and although his hair is grey, his dark eye has lost none of its old brilliancy, as is particularly noticeable when old cricket­ ing days are spoken of. Mr. William Wright, as most Notts people know, is a left-hand batsman, with a strong defence. He told me the other day that he was once playing in a match with poor Scotton. On the opposite side was a young bowler, whose father officiated as um­ pire. As Mr. Wright and Scotton emerged from the pavilion to open the innings, the umpire was overheard solemnly to say to his son, “ Bob, we must separate these two bloomin’ left-handed *uns as soon as possible I” T he F ollow in g * on R u le . I really think that it would be a good thing to alter this rule, and give the side who has the eighty runs in hand the option of either making their opponents go in again or not. There are cases where it is a decided disadvantage for a side to field through two innings in succession, especially when both elevens are scoring heavily. I re­ member once playing in a match not many years ago, when our opponents had to follow their innings after making 360 runs. And it may wellbe supposed how tired our bowlers and fielders were. I think, too, although this is perhaps a minor point, that the alteration of the rule would be better for the spectators, who seldom care to see the same team bat twice together. I am as a rule conservative about the altering of the laws of cricket, but I really think the follow-on rule would be the better for this alteration. CHARLTON PARK v. FOREST H IL L .-P la yed at Charlton Park on July 22. F orest H il l . H. E. H ockley, b B u rn e tt.................. 4 F. Skipper, lbw, b B u rn e tt...................11 H. A. H ooker, c and b Keats ...................12 M. C. Capes, b M c­ Allister ................... 2 G. Tokeley, b Keats 20 C. J S. Douglas, c b Burnett 9 W . L. Pierce, not out 14 J. Pratt, c and b Bur­ nett ........................... 0 C. W elchm an. b Burnett ................... 2 W . W. Capes, b Pease ...................13 A. Blacker, c W ard, b Pease ................... 3 B 5, lb 3 ................... 8 Total C harlton P ark . H. E. Lawrence, c and b W . Capes ... 51 E. J. Ward, b Tokeley .................. 51 H. Turrell, b W . Capes ...................17 Capt. McCanlis, c Blacker,b W .Capes 7 E. F. TayJor, not out 14 S. R , Sargent, not out ........................... 1 B 15, lb 4, w 3 ... 22 Total .......... 163 G. O. Jacob, A. H. Pease, Rev. W. M. C. Mc­ Allister, A. Burnett and Dr. W. J. C. Keats did not bat. CHARLTON PARK (2) v. FOREST H IL L (2).— Played at Forest Hill on July 22. F orest H il l . J. Trotter, c sub., b Sargent ................... J. Tisdall, c Mascall, b Sargent................... G. A. Nicholls, b Ogilvy ................... G. F.Reckitt, b Ogilvy Percy Dean, b Ogilvy A. E. Quiney, c sub. b Sargent ................... F.Seel.c k. J. McCanlis, b Sargent.................. W. Boyd-Smith, not out .......................12 H. J. Honor, c Stap- ley, b Sargent ... 0 F. Healey, run out... 19 H. M. W atm ough, b B u rn e tt................... 2 B ........................... 3 Total 54 C harlton P ark . A. L. McCanlis, b Healey ................... 5 A. J. Dodd, c Dear, b Tisdall ...................42 W . Burnett, b Nich­ olls ........................... 1 H. Stapley, b Healey 0 H.C.Ogilvy,c Trotter, b Dean ................... 4 F G. Allen, b Quiney 0 H. C. Sargent, b Tis­ dall ..........................53 A. Martin, b Dean ... 7 W. J. McCanlis, b Tisdall ................... 8 A. J. Mascall, not out ........................... 0 R. S. Wild, run out... 1 B 14, lb 4, w 2 ...2 0 Total . 141 HONOR OAK v. LEYTON.—Played at Honor Oak on July 22. H onor O ak . P. Goodall, run o u t... 27 J. Warren, b W allace 9 C. Skipworth, b W al­ lace ........................... 0 G. Harrison, b Law ... 4 F. W ilkie, b Law ... 0 F. H arri on, c W al­ lace, b D ru ce...........37 E. Hayes, c Mc- Gahey, b Druce ... 4 F. H. Huish, c Law, b D ru ce .................. 2 F. Lett, b W allace ... 16 C. H. Mayo, b W al- . l a c e ........................... 4 A. Jones, not out ... 5 B 7, lb 1 ........... 8 L e i T on . Total ...116 H. W . Lyon, run out 3 C.M cGahey,b G. Har­ rison ........................... 7 A. Law , b G.Harrison 6 G. H. Higgins, b F. H arrison ................... 0 G. D ruce, c Jones, b G. Harrison ...........14 1 E. J. W atts, bG . Har­ rison ........................... 0 I H. G. Lee did not bat. F. Butler, b F. Har­ rison..........................29 C. W allace, c Jones, b F. Harrison ... 36 C. Began, not out ... 8 G. Simpson, not out 4 B ........................... 2 Total ,.1C9