Cricket 1898

•160 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. Nov. 24, 1898. the county were 33, 25, 23, 49, 3, 67, 28 not out, and 108 (v. Notts at Bristol). His good scores throughout the fpason wereinterspersedwithoccasional failures; but as, besides the innings before men­ tioned, he made scores of 88 not out (carryingbis bat right through an innings of 127 v. Yorkshire at Sheffield, when practically everybody else failed), 73, 71 (ihese two v. Warwick), and 67, and scored in all 1,114 runs with an average of 33'75, it may be gathered that his failures were not many. With his bright, free style he was almost the antithesis of Walter Troup, the other batsman who had been absent from the team in the preceding year. Troup, though he knows how to hit, and always scored a fairly big proportion of boundaries, often carried caution to excess.* He had four long innings during the season (curiously enough, he nevergot to 50without reach­ ing the century), 180, 176, 127, and 100, and for these he batted respectively 8h. 10m., 5h. 55m., 4h. 15m., and3b. 10m. For these 583 runs, then, he batted 21J hours, and I think it is only fair to assume that the smaller scores which make up his total of 989 were not made at any quicker pace. On that reckoning, he bad over 36 hours at the wickets in 1898. Troup was a stonewaller when he came out (then a schoolboy) in 1887; he is a stonewaller still. His defenceis well- nigh impregnable ; and there can be no dispute as to the value to a side of such a man, though no side needs three or four such. There was one other such in the Gloucestershire team during the latter half of the season ; and he, like Troup, was a distinctly valuable man in spite of bis slowness. R. W. Rice could only play in ten of Gloucestershire’s twenty matches ; but in those ten he made 413 runs with an average of nearly32, and lie was never out once for a duck. His four best innings were, curiously enough, played in succession, 51 v. Lancashire at Manchester, 61 and 63 v. Sussex and 60 v. Middlesex at Bristol. P. H. B. Cham­ pain was something of a disappointment; but I amtold that examinations interfered with his cricket, and, so long as the cricket did not interfere seriously with his examinations, I suppose we ought not to grumble. He did next to nothing for Oxford ; but for his county he played two innings worthy of the highest praise. Both were made during the somewhat disastrous Northern tour. One was his 57 (of a total of 192) in the first innings of the Yorkshire match at Sheffield. (I have already mentioned Sewell’s 88 not out in the second.) The other, his innings of the season, was his splendid 113 not out v. Lancashire at Manchester, when going in to get nearly 400 to win, Gloucestershire, thanks chiefly to Cham­ pain, Rice, and Board, can e very near to getting them, in spite of the fact that they had been tumbled out in their first innings for 44. Next to Townsend, the most improved man in the team was young W. S. A. * See Interview, page 458. Brown. He is not yet a great player ; but it took years of first-class cii 'ket to mskegreat playersof suchmenasBriggs, Abe], Brockwell, and C. B. Fry, and Mr. Brown bas every cause for hope. A good batsman, and a very fair change bowler, the old Leysian was one of W.G.’s most trusty henchmen in 1898. He scored 106 v. Warwick at Birmingham and 57 at Cbeltenham, 43 v. Kent at Gravesend, 40 v. Middlesex at Bristol, and two or three 20’s and 30’s ; he averaged over 22 per innings, and took 39 wickets for a trifle under 28 runs each, hisbest performances being six for 56 in the second innings of Lancashire atOldTrafiord, and six for 75 in the Surrey match at Clifton. He did not miss amatch. Furthermore, he can­ not yet be more than twenty-one, and can scarcely have arrived at the fulness of his strength ; while added experience, as well as added strength, should domuch for him in the future. W. M. Heming­ way played very little, and his only notable score was 49 in the first innings v. Yorkshire at Sheffield. H. S. Goodwin (one match), W. G. Grace, jun. (four). C. B. Champain (three), S. De Winton (two), C. Wreford-Brown (one). A. G Richardson (three), E. C. Wright (three— he was also tried again for Oxford, but did not again get a place in the team at Lord’s), and new men in G. H. Beloe, G. E. Hemingway, and Y. W. Yorke (each one), were seen in the team from time to time without achieving anythingnotable. The professionals were not at all con­ spicuous in Gloucestershire cricket in 1898. Board did splendid service behind the wicket; but he fell off so much in his batting that he was generally sent in last. As eleventh man he did more than one plucky bit of hitting; and, as he made during the season scores of 47 not out, 43, 34, 31 not out, 27, and ten or a dozen others of double figures, he cannot be said to have been a complete failure ; but for a man who averaged 22 last sea­ son, and 18 in 1896, an average of 14-39 was very unsatisfactory. Wrathall was out of lurk, and, from going in first, worked his way down to almost the bottom of the order of going in, and was actually No. 11 once or twice. His aver­ age of 17J is not so very bad, however ; and he scored 52 not out v. Somerset ai Bristol, 47 v. Warwick at Birmingham, 35 not out, 32, 29 not out, 26, and 23 (three times) in other matches, so thal there is still tiope for him. He has never quite fulfilled his early promise ; but 1 trust that his being left out in tbe last two or three matches does not mean thai he is to be discarded altogether. R .berts had been ill before the season began, and had lost most of his pace. He played in nine matches, but was scarcely worth a place in the team even then. Let us hope to see him sound and in form in 1899. Six for 71 v. Lancashire at Gloucestei was distinctly his best performance. Murch ran up 49 v. Notts at Brist< 1, his highest score in first-class cricket; but, though it helped to build up a mammoth score of 634, his 49 was of no earthly use to his side. His 24 and 20 v. Surrey at the Oval were much more useful; andhis three wickets for 27 v. Middlesex at Lord’s and tbree for 41 inthefirst innings of Kent at Gravesend were not bad analyses. He might well have been played in more than five matches. Hale ran up 60 not out v. Surrey at the Oval, but did not score double figures in any of bis other five innings. A new man named Parish, professional to the Clifton Club I believe, was played v. Lancashire at Gloucester ; but it can hardly be said that he was seriously tried, since he was given very little bowling to do. Despite Abel’s continued splendid success, and the fine form of Brockwell, Holland, Hayward, and Jephson, one is inclined to thinkthat the great feature of Surrey’s season was the returnto his very best form of William Lockwood. Ever since his trip to Australia in 1894-5 Lockwood had not been quite himself ; family troubles had contributed their share to renderinghimunsuccessful; and so marked was his falling off in 1897 that be only appeared in the team on two occasions. He came back to it this year as good an all- round player as ever. 1 am not sure, indeed, that he is not a better man just now than he has ever been before. Certainly there are not three better all-round cricketers in Eug­ land. From the first match in which he played in 1898 it was evident that he had got back his bowling; but it was not until six weeks of the season had passed that he ran into batting form. In his first seven innings he >coredonly 10runs ; and I remember seeing him, much to my regret, make a pair at Cambridge. In the Gentlemen v. Players inalch at the Oval in June, however, he scored 26 not out, and, last man in, helped Storer to put on nearly 100 for the tenth wicket. Against Lancashire at Old Trafford in the next match in which he played he scored 31 not out; then came a fine innings of 103 against the Dark Blues at the Oval; in July he ran up 100 v. Leicestershire and 109 v. Hants, both on the home ground, and 46 v. Kent at Blackheath; inAugust he made 74 v. Notts, 51 v. Yorkshire, and 84 v. Kent, all at the Oval; and it was only his having to stand down from the last few fixtures thatpreventedhisjoining the trio who took 100 wickets and scored 1,000 runs durii g the seas n. As it was he made 878 runswith an average of just over 30. It will be notic- d that mest of his big innings were played on the Oval. As a matter of fac% he scored on the Surrey ground 629 runs with an average of over 57, on other grounds 249 runs with an average of under 14! His best bowling was done at home, too ; and, good as his batting was, his bowling was tbe most valuable to his county. It was at Kennington that he took 11 wickets for 126 v. Yorkshire, 13 for 80 v. Kent, 10 for 141 v. Essex, 9 for 131 v. Hants, 9 for 137 in the Gentlemen v. Players match, 6 for 56 in the first innings of Gloucestershire, and 5 for 51 in the first of Notts. His best performances away were 8 for 44 in the first innings of Leicestershire, 7 for 81 v. Sussex, 5 for 69 in the second innings of Kent at Blackheath, and 7 for 121 in Ihe Gentle- N E X T ISSUE, T HURSDA Y , DECEMBER 22.