Cricket 1897

Nov. 25, 1897. CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OP THE GAME. 455 BUSSEY’S CRICKET BATS. THE HIGHEST GRADE. BUSSEY’S FOO TBA L LS . THE HIGHEST GRADE. BUSSEY’S ' m - m ? HOCKEY CLUBS. THE HIGHEST GRADE. BUSSEY’S “ POLLO ID ” HOCKEY BALL. Always the same weight. Always the same shape. Never hardens. Never softens. No stitching to give way. Absolutely Waterproof. BUSSEY’S IJ/IPIiEIflEHTS FOR ALL SPORTS & GAMES . THE HIGHEST GRADE. A P P L Y F O R C A T A L O G U E TO 36 & 38, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, LONDON , OB DEALERS ALL OVER THE WORLD. MANUFACTORY— PECKHAM, LONDON. TIMBER M ILLS— ELMSWELL, SUFFOLK. BETWEEN THE INNINGS. FIRST-CLASS CRICKETERS IN 1897. ( Continued from page 442.) If the performances of Notts, Kent and Somerset were, at best, but mediocre, one cannot even apply this qualified term to those of Leicestershire. Of course, it was the hardest of hard lines that Pougher should have met with an accident that prevented his bowling a ball during the season, and only allowed him to play at all in five matches. This was pure bad luck, but the falling off in the play of the captain and Tomlin was only part of the general incapacity and weakness of the side. Dealing first with the men who did acquit themselves with some credit, one must put in the foreground C. J. B. Wood and the two young pro­ fessionals, Knight and Coe. The Market Harborough amateur showed himself a player of the really plucky and big- hearted type, and I feel confident that he will yet do much bigger things than he did in 1897. Only three of his innings were really big ones, his 102, v. War­ wickshire, 70, v. M.C.C., and 70, v. Essex, but he nearly always made a decent score in one innings or the other. Knight scarcely showed the improvement antici­ pated ; he started the season very badly indeed, only scoring 62 runs in his first eight innings, but later on he played really good cricket in both matches against Essex, Derbyshire and Warwick­ shire. He was an entire failure in the other matches, however, as the fact that 440 of his total of 527 runs were made in eleven innings in the six games indicated, leaving 87 as total for his other sixteen innings, will serve to show. Coe, though he is not particularly stylish, is a very useful ba t; he had a good deal to do with winning the games against the M.C.C. and Derbyshire and saving the return match with the Peak county. As a bowler he had a good trial, but was very expensive. H. H. Marriott batted so well for Cam­ bridge early in the season that a good deal was hoped from him when he joined the county team after the ’Varsity match. It cannot be said that he was altogether a failure, for he played innings of 43, 35, 32, 28 and 28; but he certainly fell short of expectations. He captained the team in the later part of the season, performing that thankless office (who would willingly act as captain of a team that consistently loses its matches ?) with fair credit to himself. P. W. Stocks, who, one cannot help thinking, should certainly have been given his blue at Oxford, was quite one of the best amateur bowlers of the season, and his presence inthelatermatches certainly strengthened the team considerably; but he hardly bowled as well for his county as in the few other first-class matches in which he took part. Woodcock’s successes, too, were not obtained in county matches. For the M C.C. v. Kent he had 13 wickets for 132 runs, and for his county against the premier club 13 for 125; there was nothing to approach these performances in his analytes iu county matches, and, indeed, exactly one-third of his total number of wickets during the season fell in the two games mentioned. Geeson showed better batting form on two or three occasions than one would have expected from him, and he also bowled well once or twice. Whiteside was the same useful wicket-keeper and the same aggravating batsman as ever. R. Joyce, the Bedford schoolboy, showed good form, and will likely enough make a lot of runs if he ever plays regularly for the county. Pougher played two or three decent innings ; but it was Pougher the great bowler and not Pougher the bats­ man who was most needed by the side. Tomlin played a grand game against Surrey at the Oval, but thereafter fell off so entirely that he was little better than a passenger for the remainder of the season. The captain, C. E. de Trafford, never got going; not a single innings of his realised as much as forty; and to those who know what this hard hitting, fearless batsman is at his best, it will be easy to understand how greatly his deterioration affected his side. G. E. Rudd, though he only played in a few matches, was of more use than several more regular members of the side. King, a colt, showed decided batting promise; and young Brown is not without ability; but Cobley and E. Smith (formerly of Cheshire), though each had a three-match trial, did nothing. On the whole, Leicestershire can scarcely do worse in 1898 than they did in 1897, but it seems to me not at all unlikely that they will do very much better. There is plenty of young blood in the team, and if five or six of the younger men (H. H. Marriott, R. C. Joyce, C. J. B. Wood, F. W. Stocks, Knight, Coe, King and Brown) do not yet do something to redeem the county from the Slough of Despond into which she seems to have fallen, I shall be surprised. If young V. F. S. Crawford is going to play county cricket, it seems a pity to me that he should not throw in his lot with the county of his birth. Good as he is, Surrey does not need him. Leicestershire does. The position of Derbyshire at the foot of the list, with not a single match won, is a very false one. I am inclined to rank the Peak county as stronger than at least three or four of the other teams, and certainly little weaker than one or two others. I doubt if more than six county sides are really stronger in batting; in S. H. Evershed, L. G. Wright, Chatterton, Davidson, Storer, Bagshaw, and Walter Sugg, Derbyshire has a septette of bats­ men which cannot be easily matched; and if the bowling of the county is weak at present, the same may be said of half the other first-class sides. Hulme’s absence weakened the bowling (as, on his 1896 form, the batting also) of the side; but Hulme will, it is to be hoped, be back in the team next year. In his absence the bulk of the bowling work devolved upon hard-wntking George Davidson, and the colt Hancock; and it must be admitted that, although their wickets may have been somewhat expensive, they acquitted themselves manfully. Against Lanca­ shire at Liverpool and Yorkshire at N E X T ISSUE, THU R SD AY D E C EM B E R 30.