Cricket 1898

F eb . 24, 1898. CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. •21 chiefly—as a bowler ; on recent form at home he is a really fine batsman, and although he has been disappointing in Australia, his two innings in the return New South Wales match have gone some way towards retrieving his reputation. Hirst has had bad luck in the way of getting hurt; but, admitting that, and further admitting that he is only a change bowler on such a side as Stoddart’s, he has only once taken more than one wicket in an innings, and it would be “ damning with faint praise” to fay that, as would certainly appear to be true, he has often bowled well without getting wickets. Hayward has two or three times broken up dangerous partnerships; but only on one occasion (the second innings in the match with Victoria) has his bowling met with any marked measure of success. Personally, I thought Hayward likely to be the most successful bowler of the three, and so he has proved; but I certainly did not think that such very scanty achievement would entitle him to that distinction. Would Jessop and Bull, or Cuttell and Bull, have proved of more use to the sidethan Hirst and Wainwright, one wonders ? There are many who say so now, of course; but it is easy to be wise after the event. It is a mere platitude to say that the return game between our fellows and New South Wales was one of the most remarkable matches ever played. Such a making of new records has scarcely been seen before, save perhaps when Lancashire’s 801 and Archie MacLaren’s 424 as one man’s share of it, set us all agape, or when we wondered at York­ shire’s 887, and thanked our stars that we were not Warwickshire’s poor wearied trundlers. Look at some of the points in connection with this latest addition to the great scoring matches of cricket history. . (i.) A record aggregate -1739—no fewer ^than 225 in front of the previous best in a first-class match, and 329 more than has ever been made in a first-class match in England. But then only three days’ play goes to our matches here. (•I.) Innings of 415 and 574by one side. I am open to correction; but I feel pretty sure that never before has any side made over 400in each innings. A total of 989 runs for two innings each of eleven men—only one run each more wanted to make a grand total of four figures. (iii.) A century in each of the four innings of the game. I cannot remember a parallel for this. (iv.) A side scoring a grand total of 750 runs in a match and yet being beaten by 239. (y.) Nine batsmen totalling 100 or more each in the same match. With 41 and 59 Harry Donnan made Dust 100; L. W. Pye scored 111 (80* and 31): Wain­ wright 118 (50 and 68); N. F. Druce 121 (109 and 12); Hayward 127 (63 and 64*) ; W . Howell 143 (48 and 95); A. C. K. Mackenzie 182 (ISO and 52); S. E. Gregory 193 (25 and 171), and A. C. MacLaren 201 (61 and 140). The runs made by these nine men in 1he match total up only one short of 1.300. Add Kanji’s ” total of 81,Newell’s of 74and McKibbin’s of 59, and we have 1,513 made by twelve of the twenty-two men engaged in the match—one run short of the record total for a &st-class match! It js worthy of notice that there were six men among those -who were comparative failures with the bat in this game—Stoddart, Mason and Hirst, Noble, Ire- Qale and Kelly—who have among them scored some twenty-five centuries in first-class cricket. Figure to yourself what might have happened had they all got going too! ) Scores of 43 and 95 by the last man in on a E1de-—a man who has been looked upon by most People as a bowler pure and simple, or, at best, a slogger who might hit up 20 or 30 if the bowling were l^ose. Howell must be something better than this. Perhaps he is going to fulfil his early mission as the Lyons of the N.S.W. team. But he must beware that he does not lcse his bowling. The scoring of as many as 1,300 runs in the course of three days’ play is in itself so remarkable a feat that it is not at all surprising that in only five of the many hundreds of first-class matches played in this country has that number been passed. Only between 200 and 220 first-class matches have ever been played on Australian soil, yet in no fewer than seven of these over 1,300 runs have been scored, and three of the seven have yielded respectively 1,412, 1,514 and 1,739. Seven others reached between 1,200 and 1,300, and, with only one exception, every one of these fourteen games was played out. I give a list of them. MATCHES OF OVER 1,200 BUNS IN' AUSTRALIA. 100’s in Rns. Wkts. Match. At match Ssn. 1739.. 40 . N.S.W. v. Eng. ... ...Sydney ...4...’97-8 1514...40...Aust. v. Eng. (1 ).......... „ ...3 ..’91-5 1412.. 30...N.S.W. v. Viet....... ...4...’81-2 1364 . 3t,..Aust. v. Eng. (5 )..........Melbrne. ...2...’94-5 1353...40...Viet. V. N.S.W........................ . l...’95-6 1307...36. . S.A. V. Viet .............. Adelaide...1...’83-4 1306.. 29 . S.A. v. Eng. (2) ............. ...4...’94-5 1294...24...5.krs. v.Non-Smkrs....E. Melb. ...4...’86-7 1292...31.. Aust. v. Eng.... Sydney ...3...’97-8 1266...40...N.S.W. v. Viet................................................. ,, ...2. ..’96-7 1263...40...Viet. v. Eng..................Melbrne. ...l...’94-5 1216 . S4...S.A. v. Eng. (1) ...........Adelaide ...2...’94-5 1211...35...5.A. v. Viet.......................................................„ ...3...’92-3 1201. . 31...N.S.W. V. S.A ....... Sydney ...3,..’95-6 Not one of these matches, however, but ran over four days; and in a considerable proportion of them the game lasted over five and even six. There have been 26 games in all in Australia in which 1,000 but under 1,200 have been scored, or just 40 of 1000 runs or more. Of these 40, 16 were matches between English visiting teams and Australian sides; one was the mixed game at East Melbourne (Smokers v. Non-Smokers which is included in the list given above; nine were New South Wales v. Victoria matches; seven South Australia v. Vic­ toria; three South Australia v. New South Wales; two Tasmania v. Victoria; one Queensland v. New South Wales; and the remaining one between New South Wales and the returned 1888 Australian Eleven. Very nearly one first class game in every five in Australia has produced a four-figure aggregate, and if we discard the matches played previous to the season 1881-2, in which the thousand was first reached in an im­ portant game down under, the percentage is considerably better than twenty, for nearly forty games ranking as first class had been decided prior to that season. The first first-class match in Australia in which a four-figure total was reached was between Shaw’s Team and All Australia, at Melbourne, on December 31st, 1881, and January 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, 1882. This produced 1,049 for 33 wickets. In it Tom Horan scored 124 and 26; poor John Selby, 65 and 70; George Ulyett, 87 and 23; and Billy Bates, 58 and 47. George Giffen made his first appearance in the test matches on this occasion, and contributed a well- got 30 to the Australian total of 320. The game was drawn on account of the Englishmen having to go to New Zealand. Only a month or two later came that wonderful 775 of New South Wales v. Victoria, when Murdoch ran up 321, Tom Garrett 163, and S. P. Jones 109. (Strange that, though these three are still active cricketers, their homes should now be so far apart. Garrett is still a Sydney man, and only two or three months ago made his highest score against English bowling. But “ Sammy” Jones has migrated to Biisbane; and W. L. M. leads the forces of an English county). The Victorian response was a fine one—315 and 322, Jack Blackham scoring 8 and 96, Horan 0 and 102. Thus the total for the match was 1,412. The highest aggregate ever before made in a match between the two colonies was the 771 scored in the 1869- 1870 match at Melbourne. From 771 to 1,412 is a big jump, indeed. Since then 1,000 runs in a match has been pretty common, though, proportionately, less so in the N.S.W. v. Victoria games than in those between South Australia and Victoria, where it has often happened that both sides were short of bowling. It is a curious fact that, during the visits of both this and Mr. Stoddart’s first team, the scoring in the Australian intercolonial matches has been smaller than is generally the case in a season when no outside attraction is on hand. The only really high-scoring match of the six in which the three great colonies met each other in 1894-1895 was the last of the season between New South Wales and South Australia at Sydney, and even in that no individual innings reached the century and no total came near 400. The highest total of the season in an intercolonial match was South Australia’s 358 v. Victoria at Adelaide. Against the Englishmen, Australian sides were re­ sponsible for totals of 383, 226 for four wickets, 306, 586, 333, 411, 414 and 397. During the present season, while totals of 408, 306, 311, 408, 520, 573, 323, 415 and 574 have been registered against the Englishmen, the following have been the totals scored in the three intercolonials of which news has so far been received:— South Australia v. Victoria, at Adelaide, 313, 78 for one wicket, 157, 231. Victoria v. New South Wales, at Melbourne, 320,184, 263, 92. South Australia v. New South Wales, at Adelaide, 139, 189, 228, 316. The scores of the home side are in each case placed first. The aggregate for the three matches is 2,510 runs for the loss of 109 wickets, an average of almost exactly 23 per wicket. In the eight first-class matches so far played by Stoddart’s team the Australian sides have scored 4885 runs for 127 wickets, an average of 38 4 per wicket. Admitting that there is a longer tail to an eleven of a single colony than to one of all Austra­ lia, one must also, in fairness, point out that four of the eight matches of Stod­ dart’s team have been against single colonies. Here would appear to be another proof that Mr. Stoddart is right in saying that the Australian bowlers are cleverer than our own men. I find, however, that I have rather wandered away from my first statement, which was that the intercolonials produce heavier scoring in seasons when no English team N E X T ISSUE, T H U R S D A Y , M A R C H 31.