Cricket 1898

CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. M a r c h 31, 1898. position as professional to the Staten Island C.C., in order to start for the gold mines with an expedition. Last season he had the highest batting average for the club, 52'77 for 12 innings, with a highest score of 96. A bo u t the biggest defeat on record must have been that of Middle Brighton (Sydney), who, after fielding out to 682 by Cheltenham (Victoria), lost the match by an innings and 606 runs. S om e additions to curiosities of cricket will be found on page 46. For the mention of the incident in the Old Citizen’s match, Cricket is indebted to Mr. R. C. Cole, the honorary secretary of the club; the rest of the curiosities have been kindly forwarded by Mr. C. M. Hooper. D u r in g a match at Hawke’s Bay (N.Z.), a player hit a ball out of the ground and through a shop window. The tradesman promptly appeared on the field and presented his account. W h e n Howell made his famous 95 for New South Wales, against Mr. Stoddart’s team, he only received 69 balls, scoring off 33 of them. A t Cape Town, the Observatory C.C. in its second innings against Alma C.C. lost 9 wickets for a bye. The last man made two, and was bowled, so that the innings closed for 3. The bowling analysis for this innings is as follows :—- O. M. R. W. C.Fock........ 4*1 ... 3 ... 1 ... 5 S. Ashley ... 4 ... 3 ... 1 ... 5 Ashley is a younger brother of W. H. Ashley, a famous South African bowler in years gone by. T h e followiog anecdote of Trott, from the Australasian, seems almost too good to be true. Chess players might object that it would not be possible for a man who did not know the moves to adopt Trott’s plan for more than a few minutes. It was on the same trip that a great English chess-player came on at Colombo, and the captain was quite unhappy until he had an opportunity of challenging the champion to a game. The Englishman was willing, the Australian lamentably weak—indeed, he could hardly he called a chess-player at all, seeing that he was ignorant of even a single move. But he sat down with the champion— a crowd gathered to see the game, and for nearly half-an-hour the Australian captain followed his opponent’s lead, faithfully spend­ ing long intervals between each move, in a profound study of the hoard, with such suggestive and apparently unconscious com­ ments as “ No, that would never do—he’d have me in three—Let me see ! ’ ’ and so on. Einally there was a hurried whisper amongst the onlookers, as the captain, after much, ceremony, made an obviously had move, and the expert, taking advantage of it, promptly observed “ check.” “ Check to you,” boldly retorted the captain, moving something out at random. The chess champion looked hard at the smiling trustful face of the man in front of him, hut it beamed innocently, and with never a suggestion of guile. ‘ ‘ Hy dear sir,” he said quietly, "‘ you don’t appear to understand the game.” “ Oh, no,” said the captain simply, ‘ ‘ I never played it before, hut I thought of a fine chance to pick it up from a good man.” The good man didn’t see it in that way, and left hurriedly, and in a huff, while the passengers laughed, and the cricketers told one another that the captain must have been bom with that particular talent—no man at his age could have acquired it. F r a n k A l l a n , the famous old Austra­ lian bowler, still manages to get wickets when he plays. For Lands against Chief Secretary’s Office, Melbourne, on Febru­ ary 10, he took seven wickets for 23 runs. His Excellency Sir A. W. L. Hem­ ming, recently took part in a match at Sabina Park, Georgetown, Jamaica, and gained h ig h praise from the critics by his batting and fielding. “ The feature of the match,’ ’ says th e WeeklyNtws Letter, “ was th e p la y iD g o f HisExcellency, who is indeed a keen cricketer. His style of batting was much admired, while his quick and active movements in fielding were such as to entitle him to a h ig h place in cricket.” T h e following were adopted by the cap­ tains of the county elevens as umpires for first-class matches in 1898 :—T. Mycroft and G. Hay (Derbyshire); W. Hearn, Clayton, and Westall (Essex); Woof and Painter (Gloucestershire); H. Hcltnes and Tuck (Hampshire); Remnant and W . Draper (Kent); Barlow and Young (Lancashire); Wheeler and C. E. Rich­ ardson (Leicestershire); R. Thoms, G. Burton, White and Goodyear(Middlesex) ; R. Daft, Sherwin and W. Shrewsbury (Notts); W. A. J. West, V. A. Titch- marsh and J. H. Holmes (Somerset); Chester, J. Street and Johnson (Surrey); Lillywhite, A. Hide and A. Shaw (Sussex) ; Richards (Warwickshire); A. F. Smith, L. Hall, and Yeadon (Yorkshire). A w e l l - k n o w n and amusing story in connection with American baseball has been neatly adapted to cricket as follows, by a colonial newspaper:— A well-known member of the Legislative Council went into one of the Government Offices and asked to see the Ministerial head of the department. He only saw the office hoy, and when he asked for the chief got the reply that ‘ he was down at the cricket.’ ‘ Then where is the secretary ? ’ ‘ Oh, he’s down at the cricket.’ ‘ Where is the chief clerk?’ ‘ He’s down at the cricket, too.’ ‘ But where are the other clerks ? ’ ‘ Oh, they’re at the cricket, too.’ W ondering at the answer he would next receive the legis­ lator queried— ‘ Why are you not at the cricket?’ ‘ Oh, I ’ve been, sir.’ He waited to hear no more, and departed with the remark, ‘ I think I ’ll go too.’ ” A f t e r leaving Rhodesia, where he had been engaged in active service, Captain Poore settled down to play cricket in Natal, and three weeks after his arrival made a score of 160 for the Gar­ rison against Maritzburg College. Between October 23 and February 1, when he left Natal for England, the Captain scored 1,600 runs in 25 innings, and took seventy-one wickets at an average of 1109 per wicket. His princi­ pal scores were: 174, 165 (not out), 160, 128, 124, 114 (not out), 107 (not out), 101, 100, 89 and 62. When he was a Lieutenant in the 7th Hussars he made a hundred against Lord Hawke’s team in each of the two matches played in Natal. Another prominent scorer in Natal this season is Captain Mainwaring, who has scored 1127 runs, including six hundreds. He is now in England. Up to the beginning of February the record for the first wicket in Natal was 273 by Captain Poore and Captain Mainwaring, but a new record was made on February 2nd, when Captain Main­ waring and Lieutenant Lowndes for the Royal Dublin Fusiliers against Maritz- burg College put up 303 in a little over two hours. Captain Mainwaring made 193, and his partner 117. It is note­ worthy that the College declared at 300 for four wickets, so that they were beaten before they had disposed of any of their opponents. I t is probable that Major F. F. Craw­ ford, who has of late years been very prominent in Indian cricket, will be in England this season. T h e very latest from America':— The Germantown Club (Philadelphia) has established a cricket school for the instruction of its junior players during the winter months. Classes are held four afternoons of each week, when prominent cricketers give lectures on hatting and howling. The winter wooden practice crease idea is growing. Merion is building one, and it won’t be long ere all the clubs have facilities for their members to get in some sort of shape before the green sward is available .—Cricket Club Life. A RUMOUR reaches me from Australia that K. S. Ranjitsinbji is getting together materials for a book on Australian cricket, and that he has already secured most of the photographs to illustrate it. C RICKET AND LAWN TENNIS CLUB Captains and Secretaries are invited to write for estimate for complete or partialClub outfits for the season to : — H a y c r a ft & Son, Lim ited, Sports Furnishers, The Broadway, Deptford, London, S.E.