Cricket 1897

392 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. S ept . 2, 1897. BUSSEY’S < C C B « CRICKET BATS. THE H IGHEST GRADE . BUSSEY’S FOOTBALLS. THE H IGHEST GRADE. BUSSEY’S HOCKEY CLUBS THE H IGHEST GRADE . BUSSEY’S “ P O L L O I D ” HOCKEY BALL. Always the same weight. Always the same shape. Never hardens. Never softens. No stitching to give way. Absolutely Waterproof- BUSSEY’S IMPLEMENTS FOR ALL SPORTS & GAMES . THE H IGHEST GRADE. APPLY FOB CATALOGUE TO 36 & 38, QUEEN YICTORIA STREET, LONDON, OB DEALERS ALL OVER THE WORLD. MANUFACTORY— PECKHAM, LONDON. TIM BER M ILLS— ELMSWELL , SUFFOLK. BETWEEN THE INNINGS. So after all the championship goes to the North ! I congratulate the Lancashire team most heartily upon a well-deserved honour, and the Somerset eleven not only upon a gallant victory, hut also upon the christian- Hke spirit in returning good for evil which they have evinced. For Lancashire has been almost uniformly unkind to the men of the Western county. Of the thirteen matches played between the two teams since Somer­ set’s le-entry into the first-class ring in 1891 (the return in 1895 was abandoned owing to rain, hence the odd number), three have been drawn, the red Red Rose men have won nine, and Somerset has won one. This was at Taunton in 1892, when a really wonderful display of batting by H. T. Hewett and Lionel Palairet, who on a bad wicket in the last innings of the match hit up 96 runs in 65 minutes, gave, the home side victory by four wickets. Nine to one, to say nothing of MacLaren’s wonderful 424 ! But I guess Mr. S. M. J. Woods and his men were thinking more of simply beating Surrey than of put­ ting Lancashire first by so doing. The record of the Somerset team against Surrey is far different from that against Lan­ cashire. Here are the results of the matches played between the two from 1891 to 1897 :— 1891—Oval—Surrey won by an innings and 375. Taunton—Somerset won by 130 runs. 1892—Oval—Surrey won by 179 runs. Taunton—Surrey won by 186 runs. 1893—Oval—Somerset won by 39 runs. Taunton—Surrey won by eight wickets. 1894—Oval—Surrey won by nine wickets. Taunton—Surrey won by four wickets. 1895—Oval—Surrey won by nine wickets. Taunton—Somerset won by 53 runs. 1896—Oval—Surrey won by ten wickets. Taunton—Somerset won by nine wickets. 1897—Oval—Somerset won by 224 runs. Taunton—Somerset won by 66 runs. Of the 14 matches Surrey have won eight, Somerset six. No other county has won as many as six matches against Surrey during the seven seasons. Middlesex comes next with five, Lancashire has had four successes, Yorkshire, Kent and Leicestershire three each, Gloucestershire, Sussex, Essex and Notts, two each, Derbyshire and Warwick­ shire one, Hampshire none. Tyler hasa splendid bowling record against Surrey. I doubt whether any bowler who has played regularly against the Surrey team during the last seven seasons can equal these figures, which are those of the Somerset slow bowler during that time: — 641.1 overs. ..1,390 runs.. .86 wkts...average 16.16. In the two matches this season “ E.J.” took 22 Surrey wickets at a total cost of 274 runs. At Taunton in 1895 he had the whole ten in the first innings for 49, and 13 in the match for 91. Seven for 80, 11 for 97 and eight for 121 are some of his other figures. Nor have his successes been confined to bowling. His last five innings against Bichardson and Co. have been 66, 18 not out, 51 not out, 15 and 14. No one has ever accused Tyler of being a particularly scientific bat, but he is full of pluck and can hit like a horse kicking. Al­ together, a man worthy to fight under the leadership of S. M. J. Woods—and that’s no slight praise. It was very unfortunate for Surrey to lose Hayward as they did; but in the matter of sick and injured players they have had far better luck this year than any of their great rivals except Essex (ateamwhich has suffered little in this respect), for Lancashire has had Frank Sugg, Mold, Charles Smith and Tyldesley laid up, and Yorkshire has had at various times to play without Lord Hawke, Peel, Brown, Hunter and Moorhouse. It is a great pity that Captain Wynyard cannot, after all, go to Australia, but I am glad that Briggs is to make the journey. This will be Johnny’s sixth visit to Australia, which in itself constitutes a record. George TJlyett and Billy Bates each made the journey five times, as, I believe, did Alfred Shaw, though the latter was not a playing member of theteam he accompanied on every occasion. Maurice Bead, Shrewsbury and Peel have each been out four times ; Lohmann, Barnes, Attewell, Scotton and Barlow each three. This is Mr. Stoddart’s fourth trip, the only other amateurs who have been out eventwice, being W.G., W.W., G. F. Yemon, H. Philipson and (with this time) A. C. Mac- Laren. Though he does not get out there many of the wickets that have occasionally inspired him here with that half-comic, half-pathetic wish that he could “ carry that pitch about in his bag,” Briggs has always done good work in Australia. When he went on his first^ trip (in 1884-5) he was taken for his batting and fielding, his bowling then being almost an unknown quantity, and he only bowled eight overs in the important matches. In the other four tours he took altogether in first-class matches just 150 wickets for about 18 runs each—a very low figure, one scarcely needs to say, for a bowler in first-class cricket in Australia. For “ all matches ” his figures were:— Tour of Sails. Runs. TVickets. Average. 1884-5 ... 232 ...75... 6 ... 15-00 1886-7 ... 5448 ... 1564 ... 183 ... 8‘65 1887-8 ... 4787 ... 1353 .. 208 ... 6'60 1891-2 ... 3357 ... 1073 ... 140 ... 7'66 1894-5 ... 2283 ... 1487 ... 76 ... 19'56 The figures for the last tour are in striking contrast with those of the three preceding i t ; but the season of 1894-5 was one of tremen­ dous run-getting in Australia, and the eighteens and twenty-twos did better against Stoddart’s Team than has generally been the case in Australian tours, partly no doubt because ourmen tookmattersmore easily than usual in the mere exhibition games in view of the fact that there were a larger number of important matches. This time, I gather, there will be few matches at all besides the eleven-a-side ones. In looking over this season’s century list yesterday the preponderance of the profes­ sional element early in the season and of the amateur element more lately struck me so forcibly that I set myself to classify the three- figure scores. And this was the result:— No. of By By Month.centuries, profess’n’ls. amateurs. May .................. 29 ............. 18 ........... 11 J u n e .................. 25 ............. 11 ........... 14 July .....................44 ............. 18 ........... 26 Aug. (to 28th)... 34 ............. 12 ........... 22 Which would certainly seem to indicate that the pros, get off the mark soonest. Of course there are more amateurs played exclusively for their batting than there are professionals ; and verymany of themplay quite as regularly as the pros.; so that the century list of a season generally contains the names of more amateurs than professionals. Practically, there are only about a couple of dozen pros, playing regularly just now who are not either bowlers or wicket-keepers as