Cricket 1894

10 OBIGKJET s A WEEKLY BECORi) OF THE GAME, JAN. 25, 1894 team to this country has already been put into m otion. Som e little uncertainty had naturally arisen in consequence o f the delay in the receipt o f definite intel­ ligence on this side. Subsequent in for­ m ation, how ever, has reassured those w ho are interesting them selves in the collection o f a team representative of South A frican cricket. Intelligence ju st to hand, indeed, show s that the South A frican authorities are high ly pleased w ith the programm e so far arranged for the team . ------- A n Australian newspaper is responsible for the following,— A match was recently played at Bonbury, Western Australia, between a Victorian team and a scratch eleven from the neighbourhood. The “ gumsuckers ” went in first, and the first ball bowled skied into a three-pronged branch of a tall Jarrah tree. The home team cried “ lost ball," but the umpire ruled that as it was in sight it could not be lo3t. The Victorians started running, while the West Australians sent for an axe to cut down the tree. No axe beiD g obtainable, somebody brought out a rifle, ard the ball, after numerous misses, was shot down. The score on the one hit was 286, and the Victorians “ stood” on that, and put the other tide in. The Victorians won. I re m e m b e r the great B onnor once telling how a single-w icket m atch was w on, w hile the man w ho ought to have g o ce in was haviug his luncheon, through the num ber o f w ides sent down by his opponent. A nd what stamped the story as genuine was “ B on n ’s ” assertion that he saw the whole thing h im self! B ut a hit for 2B6 licks all cricket creation, using the w ord in an im agina­ tive sense, of course. C r ic k e t , in quite its earliest days, recounted the tale o f a hit for 39 by J. F . Scobell for the G entle­ m en o f D evon v. the G entlem en o f D orset som ewhere towards the end o f the sixties. In such cases it is best, perhaps, nob to bo too precise. A nyh ow , the story w ill bear reproduction again. The wickets being pitched on the very back' bone of the ridge of the downs, the ground sloped away rapidly on either side, so that long le£ had an excellent view of the figure of the batsman clearly cut against the sky, but point was “ hulldown ” to him, and cover point completely out of sight. A big leg hit by Scobell sent the ball rolling down the hill an 1 across the tiny valley at its foot to so great a distance that tlie entire body of fields­ men, bowler included, had to “ pull foot” down the slope to help in throwing the ball up. It failed to reach the wicket keeper by a few yard3—the batsmen were half way between the wickets ; he ran to meet the ball, and, utterly regardless of the circumstances and consequences alike, threw at the wicket. Horror of horrors ! the ball flew wide of the mark, and disappeared down the opposite slope. Ho faced about: his ten colleagues were to b3 discerned at different altitudes making the ascent to the wickets with a cer­ tain amount of deliberation which betokened shortness of breath. By means of frantic gesticulations he succeeded in imparting to them, as they toiled upwards, a sense of the direna‘ ure of the catastrophe. One by one they struggled back to the summit, and disappeared down the opposite slope in pursuit of the errant leather, leaving behind them a long trail of curious words which it is as well not to reproduce here. Suffice it to say, that by the time the ball had been once more returned to the wicket-keeper Scobell had registered 37 runs as the produco of his big leg-hit. CRICKET THEN AND NOW, A F ifty Y e a r s ’ E etrospect . By th e R e v . W . K. R. B e d fo r d . “ Some wonder/’ said Punch half-a-cen- tury ago, speaking of a certain amateur author of that date — Some wonder to print and to publish a book The courage I ever could find, But sure none will marvel, when in it they look, At the rubbish I got off my mind ! And this may be Ihe verdict on the present vain o il man, but it cannot bo delivered without a certain degree of modification, for, among the rubbish of anyone who has studied the noble game of cricket for more than the forly year, which Thackeray fixed as the bound of experience, there must perforce be some grain of golden fact or irresistible suggestion. Mr. Cavendish — The Orator — of whom th re is such a cruel likeness in “ Jerks-in from Shoitleg,” sitting as I s o well remember him, on tbe lowest row of seats in front of the old pavilion at Lord’s, ruthlessly button-holing any man on whom he could fix an argument, in tbe midst of his ceaseless flow of criticism and comment, of.en either hit the right nail on the head, or indicated to the observer the exact piece of ir nmongery to which it was best to apply his force. I was born at tbe close of tbat 1 g ndary period when the “ great men,” the demigods of an'eiiluvian cricket, to whom most of the inven'ive parts of t'ie science can be traced, htd disappeared from the field, and were only “ nominum umbrae ,” read of in Clarke's Cricketers’ Tutor. The revie .ver of tbat work in the “ Gentlemau’s Magaz’ne ” in 1838, who may be conjectured to have been Mr. Je3se, sums them up thu3 appropriately— “ Farewe’l, ye smiling fields of Hambledon, and Windmill h ill! Farewell, ye thy my pas­ tures of our beloved Hampshire, and farewell ye spirits of the brave who still hover ovcrtbe fields of your inheritance. Great and illus­ trious eleven, fare ye well! In these fleeting pages a 1; least your names shall be enroll-id. What woul I life be, deprived of the recollec­ tion of you ? Troy has fallen and Theb.s is a ruiu. The pride of Athens is decayed and Rome is crumbling to the dust. The philosophy of Bacon is weariug out, and the victories of Marlborough have been over­ shadowed by fresher laurels. All is vanity but C r ic k e t ; a 1 is sinking into oblivion but you. Greatest of all Elevens, fare ye w ell! ” “ Sacred to tbe memory of the eleven greatest players of the Hambledon Club 1, David Harris; 2, John W ells; 3, Purchase; 4, Wm. Beldham; 5, John Snnll, ju n .; 6, Ha»ry Walker; 7, Tom Walker ; 8, Robinson ; 9, Noah Mann; 10, Scott; 11, Taylor. Suppose we were in the present day to contemplate the erection of a monument to the eleven greatest players of this decade, whom should we choosa ? VV. G. Grace, no doubt—and perhaps another h a lf-d ozen would be safe of securing the majority of suffrages, but for the last four places how many contending opinion3. Unfortunately, the question put of yore “ Quiscustodiet ipsos custodes ? ” would be an important element. Who would ensure the competence of the judges ? A new generation, now as legendary as the above catalogue, was, by the time I can re­ member anything of crickct, in possession of the crease, and the review to which I have just referred includes the names of Lilly- white and Pilch, Alfred Mynn, Felix and Aislabie, all of whom I have seen play, as well as of Bentley, Ward, and others who had given up the gani9, but not the ghost, by my time. I half imagine that the match in which I saw Aislabie play was his last; it was agamst Westminster School in 1S39. He was too stout to field much, and was allowed a man to run for him, but he was good enough for our eleven, and the rudimentary stjle of cricket they p'ayed. Although at tbat time there were no house j along Vauxhall Road at the Vincent Square end, except a short row standing a little back, and completing the visible parallelogram of the square, the rcugh paling of the enclosure, and the meagre crop of grass which clothed the imperfectly levelled surface testified that our wickets were pitched in old Tothill fields, in years o ^ y recently past the resort of the bear-baiter and the duck-hunter, as well as of the more legitimate votary of sport who was recordel to have shot a snipe there in the former ieign. I myself have attended a rat - killing entertainment in a squilid pit attached to a house where dwelt the College rat-catober, reputed to have been once the residence of the famous (or infamous) “ Slender B illy” Abershaw—see Jorrocks—before Dean V in­ cent enclosed a portion of the “ fields” for a Westminster playground, and con'erred h's own name upon tae a^ a, but the quality of the herbage indie ited tie hide-bound starveling s >il on whioh it struggled into growth, and toe only trea menfc it received a1, the bauds of our old groundman, Henry Bentley, erst, I b lieve, a good cricketer, but then ouly working at his trade, as a metal-chaser, was administered through the primitive scythe and stonerolle: of the gardener of the period. There was a pavilion, save the m ark! some five and twenty feet by fifteen, where on the occasion of the M.C.C. match, both eleveis sat down to a quasi-hot luncheon, anl were waited on by the “ juniors” after a fashion xvhioh robbed the meal of ar.y ve»tige of comfort. “ ’ Twas schooling pride to see the menial wait, Smile on hia brother (father or unole) and receive his plate.” But so far a* the visitors were concerned it was simply a trial of how much their good nature could endure, while certainly the game did not in any degree of merit pay the candle, for half of our school eleven p ’ayed cricket as little as they could possibly help, the attractions of the river being paramount, although, on account of their stature and their strength, they were indispensable to the team of a school which had dwindled to a tent h of the size of Eton. I suppose it had been otherwi-e in the days of Lord William Lennox, for he mu^t have been fresh from Westminster when, as he records, he played “ a match at Enghien, near Brussels, eight- and-forty hours before another species of ‘ ball practice’ was got up between Welling­ ton and Napoleon the First. We have scored ten,” he adds, “ within a few miles of Paiis aft r the Allies had occupied that city.” Our bowling, too, wai mostly fast under­ hand, erratic, but devoid of any artifice. I should think that it was quite likely that Bentley during his cricket career never bowled roundhand, which was still an inno­ vation to the earlier generation of cricketers. I remember the most serious discussions among my seniors as to the modern or Lillywhite school of bowlers, and the fair­ ness or unfairness of their m oie ; and I have heard “ windmilling” bowling as much cried down as grubs or sneaks would be nowalays. I may venture by way of illustration to quote