Cricket 1896

M ay 7, 1896. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 115 BETWEEN THE INNINGS. Since my last article was written, I have received, through the kindness of Mr. A. J. Gaston, copies of Boyle and Scott’s Australian Cricketers' Guide for the seasons 1880-1, 1881-2, 1882-3. These annuals are out of print, and I have not hitherto been able to obtain them; so the enthusiastic collector of cricket literature may imagine the pleasure I felt when this kindly gift reachedme. The scores of the few first-class matches contained therein were not, of course, new to me ; but there is a good deal of other and most interest­ ing matter which was entirely new. And to this I amgoing to devote part of my chat this week. We are standing now on the threshold of the cricket season; but there is not much of great importance to comment on as yet, and as for some months after this I hope to be busily engaged in talk of great deeds new, the discussion this week of great deeds and small deeds old may be permitted to me. I suppose Mr. David Scott—the genial and worthy “ Cricket Almanac” of Melbourne— was chiefly responsible for the compilation of these Guides. He didhis work well—perhaps not so systematically as the Editors of Wisden and Lillywhite in these days, but with no end of care, and with a watchful and judicious eye for tlie collection of cricket items of any relevant sort from newspapers and hooks, of which I hope to give one or two examples. But there are one or two things one would like to see put otherwise. For instance, this, written, he it remembered, after the great deeds of 1882 : “ The Australian Eleven.— W. L. Murdoch (N.S.W.), captain; one of the most effective hats in the southern hemisphere.” But why one? Was not Murdoch assuredly, until the days of George Giffen’ s greatness, far and away the best bat Australia had ever produced, ranking with regard to the best of the others very much as W. G. did with regard to even such good men as his brother Fred, A. P. Lucas, Allan Steel, Ulyett, and the other giants of older days? One does not want gush, but an Australian ought to feel some enthusiasm for Murdoch, and I have never quite liked the old story which A. G. Steel repeats in his article on the champion, in the last issue of Wisden , about Alec. Bannerman’s saying: “ W. G. has forgotten more about hatting than Billy ever knew.” It was not quite true, and it was not quite loyal; and if I had been in Bannerman’s place, I would’nt have said it. Mind, I don’t say that Murdoch was ever anywhere near being the equal of W. G. I hold that our champion is absolutely peerless; another case of “ Eclipse first, and the rest nowhere.” But if Master Alec, had thought a little more before speak­ ing, it might have occurred to him that what W. G. has forgotten about batting wouldn’t make a very efficient theoretical outfit for even a common or garden Saturday afternoon cricketer. It’s little worth remembering that the G.O.M. of cricket has ever forgotten. A most amusing extract from some local newspaper, given in the 1881-2 Guide, describes the excitement which Murdoch’s great score of 321, in an innings of 775 made by New South Wales against Victoria, aroused in Sydney. I repeat it here:— “ Just at present, we are cricket mad, and the noble game now rules the camp, the court, the grove. The learned, tow-headed judge, from his awful perch, leans over in a confidential way, and, as a smile breaks over his cheerful face, like the first symptoms of that ruddy disease called the rash, observes, ‘ Prisoner at the bar, you’ve hit through the fence for five.’ . . . Dreams of ‘ maidens ’ fill the fluffy young bank clerk’s soul by night, and knock him into general fits by day as well; whilst the maiden fair on her part dons her store clothes . . . and then incites the flannel-covered fiends in the field to deeds that cause the fame of Alex n- der Magnus, Julius Csesar, or Henderson Africanus to pale like farthing dips in the blaze of the noonday sun. Even our own Buchanan—that fiery orator, who denounced Trickett, as a man whose only qualification for the billet of Governor of Federal Austra­ lia, was that he could pull a log of wood up a river a little faster than someone else could, and who blasphemously spoke of the Demon Bowler as a fellow whose sole ambition was to pelt 4 ozs. of leather at another maniac’s stomach—even this modern Cato was seen to stop in the street, and heard to chat for half an hour about the glorious style in whi(!h Murdoch rose Cooper’s pill to the fence for 4, and Jones snicked Boyle between Palmer’s legs for 2.” I had not known before—or if I had heard, it had slipped my memory—what an immense number of wickets Spofforth took during the tour of the Second Australian Team. That teamplayedmatches inAustralasi x both before and after visiting England ; and according to the Guide , Spofforth bowled during that twelve months or more of cricket, interrupted by two long sea-voyages, 12,313 balls for 4,190 runs and 763 wickets. Palmer had 533 and Boyle 411 wickets; Murdoch scored 2,465 runs, with an average of a trifie over 25. In all matches for the Third Team the Demon took as many as 264, only three or four of the matches affording him an opportunity of slaughtering Eighteens and Twenty-twos. I have not his figures with the First Team ; but that side made a long tour in Australia before proceeding to England at all, playing against odds, and as its programme in Eng­ land was largely made up of similar matches, the Demon’s harvest could scarcely have been less than five or six hundred wickets. In a letter to me, dated April 19th, the Rev. Harold A. Tate, speaking of W. G., says: “ He has taken more wickets than any other man, I believe, in first-class matches, and more in all matches than any man that ever lived.” As to first-class matches Mr. Tate is undoubtedly right; but I am not quite sure that he is as to allmatches. There are several men who would, I think, at least run the champion closely here. Spofforth, for one ; when a man bowls for weeks in suc­ cession against Eighteens he has the chance of adding to his number of wickets at an enormous rate. Charles Absolon, the doyen of Metropolitan cricketers, too; he had along start of W. G., and must by now be credited with close upon 10,000 wickets. And would not E. M., the “ Little Doctor,” run his brother hard? I fancy he was generally more successful than W. G. in small matches. Then what of the bowlers who went round the country with the touring elevens in the fifties and sixties—the men of the All England Eleven and its offshoots, who tumbled out Twenty-twos from Berwick to Penzance, from Bangor to Lowestoft? (I trust no extremely literal gentleman will trouble to write and tell me that none of the travelling elevens ever visited either Berwick or Pen­ zance, Bangor or Lowestoft.) To return to Boyle and Scott. Looking through these volumes, the earliest of them now nearly fifteen years old, be it remem­ bered, one finds interesting items anent more than one famous player. Here, for instance, is Mr. J. A. Bush, on a visit to Australia, playing for the Melbourne Club, and making 47, including five fives. Here is Mr. Harry Musgrove, playing for East Melbourne in 1880-1, and scoring 294 runs in thirteen innings ; and in the same list of averiges—at the top—comes genial Tom Horan, with 417 runs in eight completed innings. Here is Jack Harry heading the averages of the North Bendigo Club, California Gully, with 22 per innings. Here are chronicled capital per­ formances by J. Slight, who did so little when in England in 1880 ; and one understands better why such an apparently weak m-in was included in the team. Herein is shown how Alec Bannerman made five centuries during the season 1881-2, two of them in the same match; and how Percy Lewis, at one time the most prominent candidate for the post of wicket-keeper to the Ninth Australian Tram, who lost his chance of the trip by a poor display in the Christmas Intercolonial at Melbourne, scored 215 for Ballarat v. Corio ; and Harry Musgrove 132 for the Stage v. tho Press at Sydney. Can the Bertie De Little, who played so well for the Corio Club in 1881-2, of whom the “ Remarks on Players ” says “ will be heard of intercolonially,” be the man who got his Blue at Cambridge some seven years ago ? E. A. De Little was his name, and he was an Australian, though I don’t know from which colony. Here (1881-2 again) is Harry Tro t, playing for the second eleven of a junior club, and averaging 8 per innings, but also taking 32 wickets for less than 7 runs each. And h- re is some tremendously fine wr ting on the subject of the Third Australian Team in England—su<h fine writing, indeed, that I d'-n’t under tand it all; but it is evident that “ Wattle Blossom,” the author of the verses, had the “ afflatus,” divine or otherwise, very badly indeed, and must either have rushed into print or—vulgarly speaking —“ bust.” Here are a few verses : — Now England’s, proud England’s blue blood to the van ; Resist them, Australia ! resist if you can ! For the cold blood of Britain is roused to the fray, And the eyes of a nation are on you to-day. For proud is the glory on fluttering wings, The glory triumphant that victory wrings, On the Oval to-day, on that field of renown, With the pride of Britannia’s high peers looking down. Hurrah ! for Australia the triumph is thine!— The brightest you’ve laid upon Victory’s shrine, The greatest, the grandest, the proudest for aye, That “ innings ” defeat on that glorious day! Behold the old nation awaking at last,* Aroused from its slumbers, with wonder aghast! Behold them in wounded, yet friendly amaze Extend to young Austral the full meed of praise ? The friendly relations of old are resumed, And all the unpleasantness deeply entombed ; For England is proud of that tie that endears— Is proud of the sons of the old pioneers. But where is that time-honoured nation of yore. Whose cricketing fame like her mountains was hoar ’Ere Austral arose from her ocean-clad sleep, And burst into life from the depths of the deep ? Aye, where ? They are conquered, their pride is laid low, Like a stately ship tost on the deep to and fro ; But the victors are scions of sons of the land, And Britain is proud of Australia’s brave stand. Be loud the ovation the Continent o’er That joyously welcomes them back to our shore, When homeward they turn in ihe roseate flow, In the bright only flush of proud victory’s glow ! For fair is the honor, and brilliant the fame, And sparkling the sheen they have shed on the name Of the fair land of Aus ral in Britain’s far clime— A h do to cling to this land for all time!