Cricket 1897

“ Together joined in Cricket’s manly toil.”— Byron. no . 4 4 i . v o l . x v i . THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1897. p r t - «t. CHATS ON THE CRICKET FIELD. MR. WILLIAM WRIGHT. Few cricketers have had a wider experience of the game than the present honorary secretary of the Notts county club, who, although he never took part in first- class matches, has been playing against first-class bowling since 1857, when he played for some years in Yorkshire with the Gentle­ men of Yorkshire and other good clubs. In the days of George Parr, Mr. Wright frequently played against Parr’ s All England Eleven, and among his constant oppo­ nents were the bowlers. Willsher, Jackson, Tarrant, Grundy, Wootton, Slinn, Southerton, old Tom Hearne and John Lillywhite. Among the batsmen he has played against were H. H. Stephen­ son, Tom Hayward, Carpen­ ter, George Anderson, Julius Cfflsar, and Mortlock At the time when Mr. Wright began to play cricket Mr. Richard Daft was just coming out as a first-class bat, while the days of Mynn and Felix (whom he saw playing in 1847) were just, over. It is an open secret that the present happy posi­ tion of the Notts County Cricket Club is due very largely to the efforts and de­ termination of its present honorary secretary, who never leaves a stone unturned to improve the prospects of his county. As a man who has played against modem fast bowlers as well as against those of thirty or forty years ago, Mr. Wright has had excellent opportuni­ ties of comparing their pace. “ There is no bowler now,” he said, “ who is faster than Jackson or Tarrant. Jackson was over six feet in height and big in pro­ portion. He ran some distance up to the wicket, and had a perfectly fair delivery, while his action was so easy that he looked as if he were a piece of machinery m motion. I have often seen him in matches against twenty-twos bowl a ball which seemed to keep level with the top of the stumps all the way, until it at last landed on the brass of the bails—he, of course, bowled with his hand lower than his shoulder. Such a ball as this was hardly ever stopped by the batsman. But the best fast bowler I ever played against was George Freeman, the York- shireman. He was also a very dangerous bat. On one occasion, when he was playing for a twenty-two against an All England Eleven, at Malton, he scored over a hundred runs in a ridiculously short time, while half-a-dozen of his partners were making duck’s eggs. I played with and against Freeman when first he came out as a boy at Borough- bridge in Yorkshire, where the Rev. Canon 0>vjn was rector. £ erding up a strong provincial team i ■ art, and the Canon was a past n ,toi ->i it. He somehow had every good p.*. er in his team, both from the Universities and for miles round Boroughbridge, and he never missed one very ‘ essential point ’— (as an old Yorkshire horse dealer always called it in cracking up a horse)—he always took his own umr-'re with him. Canon Owen’s teams in­ cluded the old Oxford player E. S. Carter (now a Canon York Cathedral), one of the best all-round play"’ 3 of his day, J. A. Pepys. Quinton Rhodes, the Hon. George Lvscelles (always one of the V“st all-round sport smen in \ orkshire), the late Sir George Cayley (a very good bowler indeed), Mr. Digby Cayley, the Rev. W. H. Richards, Scott, Daniel, CharltoPenrose, Edward Newbold, Thomas Batty (the best of a good cricketing family), and an old village player in a white hat, who was one of the best bats­ men I ever saw, but unfortu­ nately suffered occasionally from an overdose of alcohol. A great contrast to the Canon was my friend Major Egerton, the present handicapper. He once took me to play for Notts Gentlemen v. Derbyshire Gen­ tlemen at Derby, and I have never forgiven or forgotten him for that outing. The Ilajor not only had no umpire i f his own, but he had been quite oblivious of bowlers and a wicket-keeper. Derbyshire won the toss on a perfect wicket, and for two blazing hot days we fielded to them for somewhere between 700 and 800 runs. I remember getting the fii »t wicket, after fielding all the first day, just before dark when the stumps wer- drawn. Of course we all went home w^ihout having a knock, after two day’s fielding, the only satisfaction being that it was published somewhere in Lillywhite or Wisden as the ‘ record’ score for a single innings up to that date. I have hated ‘ records’ ever since, bnt MR. WILLIAM W RIGHT. From a rhoto by A . IV. Cox, n , St. Javies Street, Nottingham.