Cricket 1894

FEB. 22, 1894 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME, 29 do it. It ain’t the poor young gentleman’s fault if his father is a pawnbroker, and you might know better than nickname him.” And so the score went to B ell’s Life with the blank where the obnoxious name should have te e n ! Tuis, however,is not the direction I ought to be keeping my thoughts in. Tbe gentlemen of Nottinghamshire, whom I spoke of just now, wh ther as patrons or players of the game, were equal to any of either lank I have seen since. Lord Edwin Hill (Lord Trevor) being conspicuous in the one capacity, and Mr. Waiwick, ■' renowned Warwick ” as a Shakesperian admirer called him, in the latter. He was indeed a fine and finished exponent of the beft “ form ” then in vogue, and but for the c -11 b on his time involved by his being a country surgeon in large practice, he would have been known to a far larger circle of cricketers. He was, it is tru», a veteran. Our wittiest chronicler talks of hi* single wicket match with Widdicomb, that fabulously aged ring master at Astley’s. whom Punch used to p irallel with Methusaleh, but his eye had not lost its certainty nor his arm its muscle, and his judgment was only the sounder from his having played withRedgate and Assheton Smith. There were plenty of good yt-ung ones, too, Faulkner, a bowler of great pace and straightness, Marfleet, Goodrich, and others. The list - named gentleman, however, who was a native of Stamford, would have been claimed, and frequently played for Leicestershire, which boasted then some of the ve>y best amateurs in the cricket world. One of them, who had only just joined the majority at a rips old age, Mr. Elmhirst, some years ago celebrated the names of the triumviiate, as he stjled them (though he himself should have been added to make a quadrilateral) in a letter to the Field. He selects Bradshaw for his wicket-keeper, King for point, and Goodrich to bow l; and indeed there are few even of our finest moderns who would have made many runs against such a combination. His description of King as a batsman and in the field is by no means an exaggeration, high as Le has pitched his note ; but Bradshaw, who was in the Cambridge eleven about 1883, with Elmhirst and Lord Bessborough, deserves even greater esteem, for I have heard from Goodrich, and from old Clarke himself, that he it was who actually communicated to both those admirable slow b.wlers the secret of making lobs dangerous. That they were much as.-isted at the outset by the practice which then prevailed of playing slow bowling with a fast foot is undeniable, but even when men began to move to the ball, neither of them could be hit with impunity in a ground where t* ere was plenty of room for out- fielding. 'I he truth is that slow bowling is l arder to learn and requires more diligent practice than fa‘ t round hand, only many a beginner is disheartened by being hit— hit, as any bowling is when t ere is no penalty in view. When Matthew Kempson acquired that judgment of pace and pitch which enab ed him (with Sir Frederick Bathurst) to bowl out the players at Lord’s for a losing s?ore, he practised all the winter through at a ping'e stump in a brickmaker’s shed, and something like this should be the introduction of my eleve, if I wanted to train him into a bowler of underhand slows. When he had acquired the necessary certainty and pi\ci- ion, then, and not till then, should he bowl to a batsman. Abraham Bass was a most spirited and liberal fautor of the game; he generally had a young player or two in tow, and, as was the wont of those days, often backed them against some other well known pro. in a single wicket contest. Crispin Tinley, the youngest cf the brothers, was one of these, and he used to be made to practise the batting attitudes in a room with large mirrors all round so that he might be certain of the correct form. Probably most of my readers know by name that capital cricket book, “ Felix on the Bat,” though copies are scarce owing to the coloured prints having been in request for scrap-books or framing ; but few will probably remember that the predominant idea in the author’s mind was the identity of the attitudes of cricketers and fencers, which are exemplified by a plate in the work in question. Mr. Bass had a somewhat similar idea, and it would seem that th:s was the way he worked it out. There is another very excellent plate in Mr. Felix’s volume which illustrate* the ridiculous and affected attitudes adopted by some bats­ men— a soit of Chamber o f Horrors, or illustrations of “ how not to do it.'’ What strange notions some people have of the game. X remember a friend of mine, not insensible to the charms of rank and title, devoting himself to a dowager peeress for a whole morning in an endeavour to explain to h r the arcana of the play. The result was that old L a d yA ------ exclaimed, “ I think the whole thing is grossly unfair, eleven on one side and only two on the other 1” I suppose she would have preferred a match conducted on the lines laid down byM . Kervigan in his “ L ’Angla:s a Paris.” 1■Two or more players, holding bats in their hands, something like those wielded by a harlequin, but a couple of inches thick, face one another at a distance of fifty or sixty paces according to their skill. Two little posts three f^et in height are fixed upright in the ground behind each, across these, two little pieces of wood called wickets are so placed that the slightest shake will bring them to the ground. Lastly, a wooden ball is used covered with leather, the size of a large orange. The art of the game consists in driving the ball with the bat against the adversary’s post0, success in which is evidenced by the fall of the wicket.” (To be continued) NONDESCRIPTS, CLUB. F ixto h e s eok 1894. May 5—baling, v. Ealing May 12—Tunbridge Wells, v. Tnnlridge Wells May 14—Ewell, v. Ewell May 1 9 -Broxl'ourne, v. Broxbource May 26—Bickley Park, y. Bickley I' d rk- June 2—Reigate, v. Reigate Hill June 9—Southgate, v. Southgate June 16—Baling, v. Baling June 23—Leatherhead, v. St. John’s School June 30—Ewell, p . Ewell July 4—Watford, v. West Herts July 7—Upper Tooting, y. Upper Tooting July 14—Richmond, v. Richmond July 21—Streatham, v Streatham' July 28—Hampstead, v. Hampstead Aug. 4—Uxbridge, v. Uxbridge Aug. 6-7—Wellington, v. Wellington Aug. 8—Newton Abbot, y. South Devon Aug. 9—Exmouth, v. Exmcuth Aug. 10-11—Seaton, v. Seaton Aug. 13-14—Sidmouth, v. Sidmouth Aug. 14—Sidmouth, v. Sidmouth Auj. 18—Beckenham, v. Beckenham Aug. 25—Acton, v. West Middlesex Sept. 1—Hornsey, v. Hornsey Derbyshire furnished some good players to the gentlemen of the Midland counties, doubtless, but I chiefly recall the Burton Club as the cynosure of their cricket. Send ljd. for Artistic Show Card of C r ic k e t with E ortraits of either Arthur Shrewsbury, George iOhm ann, Dr. W, G. Grace (in four baiting posi­ tions), or Mr. S. M. J. Woods. Suitable for hang­ ing up in Pavilions, Club, and Dressing Booms. GENTLEMEN v. PLAYERS. BY J. N. PENTELOW. (Continued from page 15.) At Lord’s there was an exciting finish the amateurs winning by 4 runs only. W .G .’s 109 was the feature of the match; but Jupp also played well for 55 in his second innings. Apart from these Car­ penter's 36 was the highest score. Far- rands made his one appearance for the Players, and took ten wickets. The great George Freeman, whom W.G. thinks the best fast bowler he ever knew, Jemmy Shaw of Notts, one of the quaintest characters who ever played cricket, Martin M'Intyre and William Oscroft, all made their first appearance for the Players at Lord’s in 1871. This was Freeman’s only appearance in these matches, though he was paid the com­ pliment of being asked to play for the Gentlemen years after his retirement from first-class cricket; and he was fairly successful, taking six wickets. Messrs. S. E. Butler, who had taken every wicket in the Cambridge first innings a few days before; Mr. W. H . Ha low, who this year (’71) scored 217 for Middlesex v. M.C.C. ; and Mr. E. F. S. Tylecote, who for years held the record for the biggest score (404 not out), were the new men in the Gentlemen’s team. The match was left drawn in a very interesting condition, the Players wanting 175 to win, with a full innings to play. For them Ephraim Lockwood (76), Martin McIntyre (49), and Jupp (29) made nearly all the runs. For the amateurs three batsmen stood out conspicuously—Messrs. W . Yardley (51 and 51), W . G. Grace (50 and 37), and A. Lubbock (42 and 21). Mr. Hadow came off to some tune in his second bigmatch, at the Oval, scoring a fine 97 ; and as I. D. Walker (67) andpoor Fred Grace (61, not out) made a long stand for the eighth wicket, the total reached 299. Carpenter’s 72, not out, was the biggest score in the Players’ first innings, Jem Lillywhite making 39. When they followed on Jupp made 72, Richard Daft carried out his bat for 68, and Pooley and Alfred Shaw both scored between 30 and 40. The Gentlemen wanted 144 to win, and W.G. (43) and C. E. Green (57, not out) soon put the issue beyond doubt, the runs being knocked off with the loss of five wickets. Mr. Buchanan was again very successful with the ball, taking eleven wickets. The extra match at B ighton this year was for the benefit of John Lillywhite. W .G . was out third ball in the first innings, the feature of which was R. A. H. Mitchell’s 50, which I. D. Walker backed up with a good 37. Carpenter scored 73 and Charlwood 47 for the Players, who were in a majority of 34 on the first innings. Before W.G. went in a sccond time, Lillywhite had handed him two sovereigns, on the understanding that he should be paid back sixpence for every man the Big ’un pot. W.G. and his brother Fred put on 240 for the second wicket, when the younger Grace was out for 98. Mr. Mitchell again batted well for 37 ;