Cricket 1897

164 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. M a y 27, 1897. BUSSEY’S < £ C B « BATS. H IGHEST GRADE . BUSSEY’S BALLS. H IGHEST GRADE . BUSSEY’S y R / / x ' S x i r 5 \ v GUARDS. H IGHEST GRADE . BUSSEY’S < - C C B « GLOVES. H IGHEST GRADE BUSSEY’S BAGS. H IGHEST GRADE . CRICKETERS’ DIARY IS A GEM TOR 6cl. CATALOGUES ON APPLICATION. CITY D EPO T- 36 & 38, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, LONDON. DEALERS ALL OVER THE WORLD. MANUFACTORY— PECKHAM, LONDON. TIMBER MILLS— ELMSWELL , SUFFOLK. ! BETWEEN THE INNINGS. If I were asked to name which of the batting performances of the season up to date had given me most pleasure, I think I should say Mr. Walter Read’s 86, not out, on Thursday last. I don’t mean that I think it the best, or themost stylish, or the liveliest of the innings of 1897; but that there are few batsmen whose success would so much please me as Mr. Read’s. The public, it seems to me, are all too forgetful of great deeds past, all too ready to hail the latest proud batsman as greater than the men who have gone before him, and— worst of all— all too apt to clamour for the omission of ex­ perienced veterans in favour of immature and half-developed colts. Personally, I hate to see a good old player dropped. It was almost a grief to me when George Ulyett was left out of the Yorkshire Team; and I think that Notts dispensed with good old Billy Barnes’s services much too soon, while some explanation seems necessary of the present omission from their eleven of Wilfred Flowers. I don’t think anyone has yet suggested that W.G. should retire from first-class cricket; but quite ten years ago somecriti­ cal gentleman wanted him to resign the captaincy of the Gloucestershire elevenin favour of Mr. J. H . Brain. Brain’s con­ nection with Gloucestershire cricket has long ago ceased; W.G. is still, to all in­ tents and purposes, the bigger half of the Western county’s eleven. Most of us can remember that Mr. O. P. Lancashire and Mr. S. M. Crosfield were successively spoken of as Mr. Hornby’s successors in the captaincy of Lancashire. Mr. Hornby still appears in the field on occasion as the Lancashire skipper; Messrs. Lan­ cashire and Crosfield are, as far as first-class cricket is concerned, non eat, though I am glad to see that the latter has lately taken up a position in which his skill and experience should be of im­ mense benefit to the Red Rose county. Then Lord Hawke was to make way for Mr. P. S. Jackson ; Mr. W. L . Murdoch was to hand over his office to Prince Ran- jitsinhji; Mr. Key was to retire that Mr. Leveson-Gower might lead Surrey. I wonder that no one suggests Mr. Owen’s shelving in favour of Mr. Bull or Mr. Perrin, or Captain Wynyard’s resigning his office to young Mr. Barrett. I have no faith in young and inex­ perienced captains; and I think that there are players whose wide knowledge of the game and influence over their men make them worth their place as captains even after they have lost a good deal of their activity in the field, and cannot, perhaps, make quite as many runs as they did ten years ago. Por that matter, the veterans are not quite alone in the sin of indifferent fielding ; there are younger men I could mention, who could field well if they would, and who certainly don’t. In fact, there is scarcely a county team where fielding might not be largely improved. Ranjitsinhji is reported to have said in a recent interview: “ I am convinced that if only the man who is fond of batting and bowling would set himself seriously to master the fine art of fielding hewould derive the same pleasure from his outings as he now does from his innings. To me fielding has a great fascination, and I feel perfectly sure that if others who do not like it would but take an interest in it and try to keep themselves up to every point, they would find far more pleasure in the game than they do now. . . . Any number of matches, as you know, are lost by bad fielding, and it frequently happens that a brilliant catch will put a stop to a long partnership, and entirely alter the aspect of the game.” Bravo, Ranji! With you, fielding is indeed a fine art; would it were so with a ll! But I would scarcely put it to a man that he should field well on the score of pleasure to be found in it; it is probably true that the better he fields the more pleasure he will find in it, but it is his duty to his side to fieldwell, evenalthough he may hate it mortally. Aud almost any man may improve his fielding, though here and there is one who, I should imagine, would never be smart, try as he might. I know that one of the most notoriously bad fieldsmen now playing first-class cricket— no, I am not going to give his name— is not so for want of try­ ing. And— to give an example of a man who has improved greatly— I don’t think those who remember Mr. C. P. Foley in his Cambridge days, not sovery long ago, will dispute the fact that he is worth three times as much to his side in the field now as he was then. But I was talking of the veterans, and especially Mr. Walter Read, one of my earliest cricket heroes, and one in whose doings my interest has never varied. The great things which he has done for the county are almost innumerable; but they would appear to be also almost forgotten. Let me refresh thememories of some few, at least, with a list of his centuries for the old county, and in other big matches. I am not going to give them in extenso, but merely to summarise them. M r . W. W. R ead ’ s C enturies . ForSurreyv. Derbyshire... 109,123,115,145 „ v. Essex ... 143, 214*, 129 ,, v. Gloucester ... 135,120, 107 „ v. Hants ... 168,102 „ y. Kent............ 106, 160, 117,100 ,, v. Lancashire ... 127, 217, 147* „ v. Leicestershire 162*, 157 „ v. Middlesex ... 115 ,, v. Notts. ... 135 „ v. Sussex ... 163,101, 171,112,196*, 111 „ v. Warwick ... 112 ,, y. Yorkshire ... 140,103,161 „ v. Camb. U. ... 114, 214* „ v. Oxford U. ... 118, 338 „ v. Scotland ... 156 For Gent, of Sy. v. Gent. of Notts ............160 »•- „ Gent, of Sy. v. Phila- y ✓ delphians ............105, 130 ,, Gent, of Sy. v. Parsees 132 y ,, Engld. v. Australians 117 „ Southv. „ 102* S „ Gent, of E. v. „ 109 -/ ,, Gent. v. Players ... 159«/ „ English TeaminAus- / / ✓ tralia..................... 183, 119, 142* ,, "W. W. Read’s X I v. W. G. Grace’s XI... 128 There is a list of just fifty centuries, nearly four-fifths of themmade in matches as to whose first-class calibre there can