Cricket 1898

Nov. 24, !898. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 459 BUSSEY’S HOCKEY. FINEST CLUB MADE i s t h e 9 C * AS USED BY THE B EST PLAYERS, 8 / 6 . REQULA TION CANE HANDLE HOCKEYS, 6/6, 5/6, 3/6. BE ST < C G B ^ MARK- APPLY FOR CATALOGUE TO Geo. G. BUSSEY & Co., 36 & 38, Queen Victoria Street, LONDON; OB DEALERS ALL OVER THE WORLD. M A N U F A C T O R Y — PECKHAIV!, LONDON. T IM B E R M IL L S— ELMSWELL, SUFFOLK. BETWEEN THE INNINGS. FIRST-CLASS CRICKETERS o f 1898. {Continued from page 448.) W.G. must be proud of the Gloucester­ shire team. And his pride has good foundation. Never has the Western shire had a better eleven than to-day, when the old lion has underhis leadership half- a-dozen young H o e s worthy of such leading. As compared with 1897, the most notable changes in the Gloucester­ shire teamwere that C. O. H. Sewell and W. Troup, neither of whom had played at all then, came back to it, and that W. S. A. Brown, who had played in only eleven matchesthen, was a regular mem­ ber ; while W. M. Hemingway, H. S. Goodwin, and S. A. P. Kitcat, with some others of less note, played much less fre­ quently, Kitcat (whom one would have liked to see out again) not at all, indeed. The Grand Old Man pursued the even tenor of his way. To get rid of him cheaply is still a feather iu the cap of the bowler who does it. Not until his penultimate match of the season was he out for a duck. In 41 innings he only ten times failed to secure double figures ; and his scores included three centuries, eight innings of 50 and under 100, and fourteen of 20 andunder 50. His greatest success of the year was in the match at Leyton, when Gloucestershire and Essex met for the first time. In it he scored 126 and 49 out of totals of 231 and 151, andtook in the first innings of the opposi­ tion seven wickets for 44 runs. Just about this time he was in fine bowling form, and in three successive matches took twenty-five wickets for 280 runs. In all the other matches in which he bowled ha had eleven for 637, which is not great. But then W.G. would doubt­ less prefer that the young men should do the bowling nowadays. He has done enough in bis time. All-round, Charles Townsend’s perfor­ mances were an immense improvement on those of 1897. Then he scored 685 runs with an average of 21 40, and took 92 wickets at 27-36 each ; this last season he made 1,270 runs with an average of 33'75, and took 145 wickets for 20'60 each. Figures, as we are often reminded, are not everythingin cricket; but figures such as these have an eloquence of their own. From the very outset of the season he was making runs; but his best period was from June 9th to July 16th, when in successive innings he made 134, 62, 5, 159, 81, 15, 139, and 122—687 runs in eight innings. Daring the rest of the campaign he was scarcely 80 successful; but he scored 131 v. Middlesex at Bristol early in August, reaching his 1,000 runs in the course of that innings, andlater on 68 v. Surrey at Clifton, and 31 in the second matchof theHastings Week. He has many more strokes than of old; his style is far less angular and (not to put too fine a point upon it) ugly than it used to be; and for so slightly built a man he nowgets a gooddeal of powderbehindhis hits. In August, when on the whole he did not do well with the bat, he was per­ forming wonders in the bowling line. It seems worth while to summarise his record month by month, in order that an adequate idea may be obtained of his immense improvement in the last month of the regular season. Well, in May (four matches) he tooksix wickets for 341 runs—average 56 83 ; in June (five matches) 31 for 7U9—22 87 ; in July (seven matches) 30 for 836-27'86; in August (seven matches) 70 for 946—• 13•o1 ; in September (two matches) eight for 166—1950. His bowling in August of this year vividly recalled his perform­ ances in the same month of 1895, when he took 94 wickets for 1,163 runs ineight matches, an average o f 12'37 per wicket. Outside his bowling in August of this last season, Townsend’sbestperformances were v. Middlesex at Lord’s in June, when he had nine for 48 and six for 86, and v. Warwick at Birmingham in July, when he sent down no fewer than 450 balls and took ten wickets for 204. It is scarcely necessary to refer in detail to his August achievements. Hindicapped by ill-health, Gilbert Jessop, who in 1897 made over 1,000 ruus and took over 100 wickets, as Townsend did in 1898, went back almost as much as his comrade advanced. Not until quite theendof the s 3ason did he score one of those tremen­ dous hitting centuries which made him the idol of the average spectator in 1897. At Hastings he came out inhis trueform, and against Richardson, Jack Hearne, Hirst, Briggs, and Mason hit up 112 runs in 68 minutes. Yet he did plenty of other good work, with method some­ what quieter, earlier in the season. For Cambridge he scored 35 v. Webbe’s XL ; 55 not out (a true Jessopiin innings) and took twelve wickets for 67 v. Hants, his best all-round performance of the season, fairly winning the game for his side ; 36 v. Sussex and 47 v. the M.C.C.; and in the ’Varsity match he bowled well, sticking to his work like the big-hearted player he is, but without much luck. For his county he made 65 v. Somerset at Bristol, 62 and 24 (two most valuable innings) v. Kent at Cheltenham, and 36 and 37 not out v. Sussex at Brighton ; while against Lancashire at Manchester he took in one innings eight wickets for 54 runs. A batting average of over 24 and a bowling record of 69 wickets at about 22J each (both better than his averages o f 1896) wouldbereckoned good for most men ; it is by way of being a compliment to Jessop that everyone seems to think it anything but good for him. C. O. H. Sewell, who did so well for the South African team in 1894, was very disappointing when he first came out for Gloucestershire in 1895, but, although unable to play quite regularly, did fine work in 1896. In 1897, owing to the illness and death of his father in South Africa, he was not seen in first-class cricket at all. This season he was in great form. His first two inningsforthe M.C.O. were 42 and 111 (v. Lancashire), the latter the first century of the first- class season ; his first eight innings for N E X T ISSUE, THUR SDA Y DECEMBER 22.