Cricket 1895

94 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. A p r i l 25, 1895. TWELVE YEARS OP SURREY CRICKET. (1882-1893). Continued from C r ic k e t , November 29th. (Page 433.^ A defeat by an innings and 27 followed at Liverpool, where Mr. A. N. Hornby scored 161, Mr. A. Gr. Steel 83, and Briggs 76. W. W. Read made 95 and 32 for the losers. W. W. and Lohmann were play­ ing for England when Derbyshire was m et; but Surrey won easily, Abel scoring 115 for once out. Then at Leicester, on a terribly fiery ground and in Mr. Shuter’s absence, Surrey lost by ten wickets, Pougher taking 13 for 54. At Brighton, though W.W. and Lohmann were again away, Sussex lost by three wickets ; at Beckenham Kent went down by ten wickets, Mr. Roller scoring 102, not out, in steady style, and Lohmann hitting dashingly and fearlessly in making 107, bis first century. Mr. Frank Mar- chant scored 96 and 65 for Kent. The return with the Australians was won by an innings and 209. The Surrey score was 501—Maurice Read 186, Abel 144, W . W. 80. Abel and W. W. put on 135 ; Abel and Maurice 241. After this a defeat from Notts was very disappoint­ ing. It was followed by worse, how­ ever, for after Derbyshire bad been beaten in an innings, W. W. scoring 115 and Abel and Mr. Shuter putting on 186 for the first wicket, Sussex won by four wickets, the losers suffering from Bowley being taken ill on the first day of the match. Mr. F. M. Lucas scored a splen­ did 121, and Lohmann made 56 and 42. This was the last defeat. Kent, in spite of fine bowling by Martin, went down by 39 runs; W.W. scored 120 and 50,not out, at Clifton, and the county of the Graces lost by eight wickets; and the season finished up with victories in an innings over Leicestershire (Mr. Read, 157, not out), and ten wickets over Hampshire. The record of 1886 was, perhaps, on the whole, equal to that of 1885, though defeats at the hands of Leicestershire, Sussex and Oxford might be reckoned as stains on the shield. W. W. had again been the batting mainstay of the side, scoring 1487 runs—average 43; but Maurice Read (1168—-31), and Abel (1164 — 29) also did splendid service; and Messrs. Roller and Shuter, and Lohmann all did well. The brunt of the bowling was borne by Lohmann, Bowley, and Beaumont, who secured 166, 106, and 102 wickets respectively. The next season was, in one respect at least, one of Surrey’s most wonderful years. Almost throughout it the eleven batted in wonderful style. The first ten matches were all either won or drawn. Hants went down by seven wickets, W.W. scoring 113 for once o u t; a drawn game, owing to rain, was played with Warwick­ shire ; Middlesex was beaten in an innings at Lord’s, Mr. Roller (118) and Lohmann (76) putting on 105 together; Notts was well beaten at Trent Bridge ; the return with Warwickshire at Bir­ mingham was, like the first match, drawn through rain; Leicestershire was beaten by 269 runs, Abel scoring an innings of 118, andW.W. making 74 and 32 ; and at Oxford three centuries were made (W.W. 118, the Surrey captain 111, and Mr. Rashleigh, for the ’Varsity, 105), and an innings victory was recorded. Then came two remarkable games. At Manchester Mr. W. W. Read played the best innings (though not the highest,of his long career), scoring 247. Mr. Roller made 120; and he and Mr. Read actually put on 305 while together. Mr. Shuter scored 70, and Lohmann 68; Maurice Read waited five hours with his pads on, and was caught at the wicket without scoring; and the total was 557. In spite of Mr. Allan Steel’s splendid 105 Lancashire lost by an innings and 134 runs. In the very next match at the Oval, against Cam­ bridge, W.W. played another immense innings, scoring 244 not out. He had thus made 491 runs within a week; while his side scored exactly 1100 for the loss of but twenty wickets, the score this time being 543, and Cam­ bridge, like Lancashire, being beaten in an innings. Abel (9 2 ) and Maurice Read (68) put on 109 together. Gloucestershire was beaten in aninnings at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Wood making 75 and Jones taking 11 wickets for 54. Then came the first defeat, by 82 runs, from Oxford at the Oval. Mr. E. H. Buckland (148) and Mr. Rashleigh (75) put on 183 while together, and Mr. Evan Nepean’s slow bowling proved very effective; while Mr. Roller (109) and Lohmann (79) alone did themselves justice for the county. The next match was also lost, Middlesex triumphing by nine wickets, Messrs. Stanley Scott (132 for once out) and A. E. Stoddart batting splendidly; while Mr. Shuter, who played a second innings of 100, and young Henderson, who had just gained his place in the county team, played pluckily for the losers. In spite of the fact that about this time the valuable services of Mr. Roller and Jones, both of whom were probably just then better men than they had ever been before, were lost to the team through illness, a welcome turn in the tide now came, seven matches being won in succession. Yorkshire went down in an innings at Sheffield, Essex at the Oval, and Kent at Beckenham, Leicestershire lost by eight wickets, and Derbyshire by an innings and 237 runs. W. W. scored 145, Mr. Key 97, Abel 92; the two last- named put on 142 while together, and Mr. Read and Abel 187. The most exciting and best contested match of the year, producing moreover a record attendance, followed, Notts losing in the end by four wickets, thanks in a great measure to Maurice Read and Lohmann. Then Gloucestershire was beaten by six wickets, and Sussex, after a fine match (in which Walter Quaife scored 111 and 46, Mr. Key 38 and 73, and Lohmann an innings of 115), by one wicket only. At the Oval against Lancashire four of the crack batsman of the side, Messrs. Shuter, Key, and Read, and Abel, only made altogether 30 runs in their two innings each, and though Maurice Read and Lohmann batted with wonderful pluck, the Red Rose county, thanks mainly to the batting of Frank Sugg, and the bowling of Briggs and Barlow, won by 147 runs. That was the last defeat. Derbyshire had the best of the first innings at the Oval; but in Surrey’s second, Abel (84), and Henderson (98), put on 177 together; rain came on, the Peak County were slaughtered for 42 (Abel 6 wickets for 15), and lost by 299 runs. Yorkshire went down as in the Sheffield match, in an innings ; Mr. Key (179) and Mr. Read (100) put on 241 in the seeond innings of the drawn match with K ent; Hampshire at Southampton suffered defeat by an innings and 290; and the season closed with drawn games with Sussex (in which the Surrey batsmen tried to get out in order to have time to win, and the men of Sussex refused to oblige them), and Essex, Mr. Key scoring 105 in the latter match. Only three matches were lost of 27 played. Over 10,000 runs were scored by the side. Lohmann took 176 wickets for about 13 1-3 runs each. W.W. scored 1829 runs—average 52, Mr. Key 1185— 56, Mr. Shuter 1061—33, Mr. Roller 545 —30, Abel, Maurice Read, and Henderson all averaged between 26 and 22. Such figures surely speak for themselves as to Surrey’s phenomenal strength in 1887. Beaumont and Bowley were Lohmann’s chief aids in the bow ling; but Jones bowled splendidly while available, and his services were badly needed once or twice later in the season. The year 1888 hardly began so well. Lohmann and Maurice Read had only just got back from Australia when the game began against the Colonists ; and Surrey lost by an innings and 154 runs, Mr. C. T. B. Turner scoring 103. Then three games were won easily. Against Gloucestershire the two Reads put on 122 while together, Lohmann took 12 wickets for 66, and the game was won in an innings; Notts went down by nine wickets, Mr. Shuter and Abel putting on 144 before a Surrey wicket fell; and Derbyshire (no longer ranking first-class) succumbed in an innings. The Surrey amateurs were all absent in the Leices­ tershire match; and the county which has so often proved a thorn in the side of the doughty Ovalites won a small-scoring match by 11 runs. Not one of the next fourteen matches was lost. W. W. made 129 against Essex at Leyton, Surrey winning by an innings and 173, and 103 against Yorkshire at the Oval, a match which was also won in an innings, with 117 runs to spare. Loh­ mann took 10 wickets for 73 against Kent, who suffered defeat by eight wickets; Abel scored 160 against the Cantabs, who were beaten at the oval in an innings, and 94 against Middlesex (Mr. Shuter helping him to add 105 for the first wicket, and Lohmann running up a dash­ ing 77, besides taking 12 wickets for 126), who also lost in an innings. Then came the match with Oxford, memorable for W .W .’s wonderful innings of 338. Abel helped Mr. Read to add 142 for the third wicket; and Henderson though only making 36, stayed while 199 were put on