Cricket 1897

J an . 28, 1897. CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD-OF THE GAME. 3 fifteen they were beaten by seven wickets. “ Kenny ” Burn played in grand form for them, scoring a magnificent 87, including fourteen boundary hits, and a second of 27. What a strange thing it was that Bum could do nothing when over here in 1890 ! Scoring generally rules bigger in Mel­ bourne than in the other Australian cities. Among recent performances there is a score of 625 made by East Melbourne v. Richmond, and including two in n iD g s of over 200—to wit, 211 by McMichael and 227 not out by Thompson, a colt representing the club for the first time, who carried his bat right through the innings. I cannot remember another instance of two 200’s in one innings, while Thompson’s feat must surely be unique for a colt. TEN YEARS OF FIRST-CLASS CRICKET IN ENGLAND. I am going to devote some space in this and the next number or two of Cricket to something in the way of a summary of the last ten years’ first-class cricket in England. In this, I shall include in­ dividual averages, a synopsis of the results of matches played by the leading teams, and brief references to such matters as big scores, both by sides and by in­ dividuals, rare bowling feats, &c. To begin with, in the tables which I present this month, I give the figures of every batsman who has played 100 or more innings, and every bowler who has taken 100 or more wickets. These are compiled from the scores of the matches generally regarded as first-class, which may be summarised thus:— (a) First-class county matches, com­ prising in 1887 the games played one against the other by Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Kent, Lancashire Middlesex, Notts, Surrey, Sussex and Yorkshire; from 1888 to 1890 (inclusive) by these counties except Derbyshire- from 1891 to 1893 by the same eight as in the previous three years, with the addi­ tion of Somerset; in 1894 by the nine of 1891-1893 with the addition of Derby­ shire, Essex, Leicestershire and Warwick- ; 1895-1896 by the thirteen of 1894 with the addition of Hampshire. ( b ) Matches played against sides reckoned as first-class by Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the M.C.C. (c) All matches played by the Aus- ,oniaa .teams of 1888> 1S90, 1893 and 1896, With the exception of the match against odds at Blackpool in 1893. (d) The representative matches of each year; Gentlemen v. Players, North v. oouth, and the like. (e) Some few matches as to which a ai erence °* °Pmi°n may exist; such as Liverpool and District v. Yorkshire, Cambridge University v. Dublin Univer­ sity. In these cases I have followed the uling of the M.C.C. during the short time in which it has issued a definite uling, and for the years before that have been content to take Wiaden as my guide. In the batting table which follows the names of no fewer than 128 players will be found. Ten of these—if we include Messrs. Murdoch and Ferris—are Aus­ tralians. Of the remaining 118, 52 belong to the amateur class, 66 to the professional. Fifty - nine players al­ together have averages of 20 or more runs per innings. Of these 34 are amateurs, while only 25 are professionals. In the last 20 on the list, there are 19 pro­ fessionals as against one amateur, Mr. A. T. Kemble; but as, without exception, everyone of the 20 was played for his bowling or wicket-keeping, not for his batting, and as bowling and wicket- keeping are departments of the game in which the amateur is, as a general rule, inferior to the professional, perhaps there is not much in this. Dividing the 59 who have an average of over 20 into three groups, we find that the first group of 20, which ends with the Rev. W. Rash- leigh, have averages ranging from over 47J to about 26J. The second group (20), beginning with J. T. Brown and ending with Arthur Paul, vary by little more than three runs; while the third (19), beginning with Mr. Ford and ending with Mr. Jones, have a still smaller divergence. After these come a number of sterling batsmen who have not quite managed to achieve during the decade the hall-mark of success which an average of 20 per innings over a long period may fairly be held to confer; and No. 41 of these is arrived at before one reaches 15, by no means a bad average in itself. Thus of the 128 batsmen, who during the ten seasons 1887-96 (inclusive) played 100 or more innings in English first-class cricket, exactly 100 achieved averages of from 15 to 47, while only 28 fell below 15, and actually only eight did not reach double figures. Even among the eight there is scarcely one who has not at some time or another done loyal service with the bat. Roberts has more than once played the stolid stonewaller at the end of an innings while his great captain ran up the score. Tom Richardson and Arthur Mold are determined batsmen of the do- or-die, hard-slamming, anything but scientific, yet often useful order. I can recall eminently useful innings played even as recently as 1896 by hard-working Tate and level-headed Dave Hunter; and has not W . G. said that Sherwin was by no means a bad bat when he liked ?—an opinion that is said to have highly grati­ fied the stalwart Mordecai. Many well-known names are, of course, missing from this list. You will not find Captain Wynyard here, or Mr. F. Mit­ chell, or Mr. James Douglas, or Barton, Killick, Holland, Diver or Bagshaw. The reason is that these players have not yet reached the 100 innings lim it; and a line had to be drawn somewhere. But I hope to give next month the figures of the best of those who have played in fewer than 100 innings, as a supple­ mentary table. It is curious to note how comparatively few have played all through the decade. Shrewsbury was absent in 1888 and too unwell to play in 1894. Mr. Stoddart was away in 1888. The Rev. W. Rashleigh missed one whole season, and has never been able to play quite regularly since he left Oxford. Mr. Philipson and Mr. Nepean are two more fine cricketers who have been able to appear but irregularly. None of these can fairly be considered to have played right through, nor can Mr. E. M. Grace, who only appeared twice last year, and not at all in 1895, nor George Lohmann, who missed 1893 and 1894 and part of 1895 and 1896, nor Jem Wootton, who dropped out of the Kentish ranks to reappear some years afterwards in those of Hampshire, nor Maurice Read, who was missed from the field entirely in 1896, nor Walter Wright, who, qualifying for Kent at the time, did not make a single appearance in first-class cricket in 1887, nor some others whom I need not single out, since their first-class career began during the decade or ended before its close. These then are the men who have played in each of the ten years 1887-96 : W. G. Grace, Gunn, Abel, W. W. Read, Sir T. C. O’Brien, W. H. Patterson, K. J. Key, W. Newham, Chatterton, Frank Sugg, Brockwell, Davidson (though very infrequently between 1888 and 1893), A. J. Webbe, Bean (1888 was almost a blank for him), F. Marchant, J. A. Dixon, Flowers, Alec Hearne, Lord Hawke, Peel, Baker, Henderson (very seldom of late), George Hearne (now very occasionally), Briggs, Pougher, A. N. Hornby, Painter, Rawlin (only once in 1888), Harry Daft, Wood, C. W. Wright, Attewell, J. E. West (at rare intervals of late), Martin and Roberts. Thirty-five in all, and of these ten or a dozen cannot be said to have been play­ ing regularly during the whole time. But now take a glance down the list and pick out the new men of the decade —a brilliant phalanx indeed ! Ranji, the incomparable, Palairet, the graceful, record - breaking MacLaren, brilliant Jackson, Ward, the steady and stylish (Ward played a few innings for York­ shire in 1886, it is true), Hayward, worthy bearer of an illustrious name, Mason, the Hope of Kent, Brown, the sturdy Yorkshire hero, Fry, Lilley, Storer, Carpenter, Brockwell, Tunnicliffe, Mar­ low, and many another among the bats­ men ; Richardson, Mold, Lockwood, Jack Hearne, Mead, Townsend, Woods and others among bowlers. A glance at the reverse side of the shield. It is not surprising that we should have to go some little way down the list before we came to the first of those who are no longer seen upon the good greensward as first class cricketers, because one can hardly expect a man to earn as high an average in his declining years as as in his lusty prime. No. 23 is the first we come upon, and that is an illustrious name, indeed, the name of Maurice Read. A little later is another old friend, by no means as attractive a player as Maurice, but'every whit as loyal and as plucky, Louis Hall. Close behind him is Mr. Stanley Scott; but then we have to go some distance before finding a very old favourite in Billy Barnes, while a little lower are the names of Surrey’s old and well-loved captain, Mr. Jack Shuter, Fred Lee (dead now, poor fellow) 1 N E X T ISSUE, THURSDAY , F E B R U A R Y 25.