Cricket 1898

84 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME A pril 28, 1898. getting through the shortest programme they played during the twenty-five years over which these records extend. N ot a match was played in M ay; but early in June the Gentlemen were faced, and defeat was experienced b y an innings and 12 runs. Curiously enough, the Gentlemen made against Oxford exactly the same score as Cambridge, a few days earlier, had made against them—256. G. P. Vernon, an old Oxonian who never got his blue, was highest scorer, with 65; P. W . Kingston, the Cantab, made 61 ; and there were four scores of between 22 and 81. For the ’Varsity, Heath made 15 and 41, and A. H. Evans (his first match for Oxford) 22 and 25. No bow l­ ing analysis of this match could be procured; but, apparently, David Buchanan and R . G. Henderson bowled throughout both innings of the ’Varsity —at any rate, they shared the wickets between them, Buchanan getting 12, and his colleague 10, twelve a side playing. Against the M .C.C., at Oxford, the Dark Blues made a far better show, though scoring ruled very small; and they only lost in the end by two wickets, a result largely due to Vernon R oyle’ s cool and clever 34, not out, for the club. The brothers Webbe made most runs for Oxford, sending up 79 before the first wicket fell in the first innings, a wonder­ ful start for a match in which little more than 400 runs were scored. H . R . made 53 and 6 ; A. J., 41 and 8. There were some fine bow ling performances in the game. Alfred Shaw had 11 for 67, Fred Morley 10 for 114 (twelve aside played) for the clu b ; while the two freshmen from Clifton, Evans and R . L. Knight, with 8 for 79 and, 11 for 88, respectively, did great work for the men of Oxford. In the return, at Lord’s, scoring was much b igger; and for the only time in the season the Dark Blues showed fairly good form. They scored 276 and 248, the brothers Webbe being again very prominent, A. J. with 118 and 6, H . B. with 47 and 46, not out. They sent up 96 for the first wicket in the first innings. E. T. Hirst went in first in the second hands, and played a fine three hours’ innings of 114, the best innings b y far of his first-class career; A. H . Heath scored 12 and 4 3 ; and R. L. Knight, 36, not out, and 13. For the club, E. F. S. Tylecote, an old Dark Blue, made 77, and G. H . Longman, an old Light Blue, 58; while W . Foord- Kelcey, another old Oxonian, did best with the ball in the match, taking 9 wickefts for 109. The match was drawn after the usual two days’ play, drawn unmistakably in Oxford’s favour, as the club would have had to score 310 to win. Previous to this match, it had looked to be all the world to a green gooseberry on Cambridge; but their batting against the M.C.C. had made it evident that in the brothers Webb? and Hirst, the Oxford team had three men who m ight possibly upset calculations, while Evans and Knight were quite as good a pair of bowlers as Buckland and Tylecote, who had Cambridge so thoroughly stuck up in 1877. Cambridge got first innings, and A. P. Lucas and Alfred Lyttelton had been sent to the rightabout with the score only 24. Then Edward Lyttelton (53) and Herbert Whitfeld (22) carried the score to 82, but Evans bowled Whit­ feld and D. Q. Steel with successive balls, and two runs later bowled L. K . Jarvis and Edward Lyttelton—four wickets, all clean bowled, in eleven b a lls! Allan Steel stopped the rot, and, getting some slight help from Bligh and Morton, eventually carried his bat for 44, the total being 168. Evans’s analysis was five for 55 ; A. H . Heath took the last two wickets for four runs. Though six men made doubles, the Oxford innings of 127 was a slow and poor performance. A. J. Webbe actually batted three-quar- ters of an hour for 11; H . R . scored 26 by perhaps the brightest cricket of the innings; and A. D. Greene, going in No. 4, took out his bat for a wonderfully patient 35 ; Savory, who made 19, having helped him to add 30 runs for the ninth wicket. A. G. Steel had taken eight wickets for 62. Cambridge’s second innings had a brilliant commencement. A. P. Lucas (74) and A. Lyttelton (64) put on 117 runs for the first wicket. Evans then bowled so effectively that eight wickets were down for 182. Ivo Bligh (24*) and Morton added 35 for the ninth, and the innings closed for 229. Evans had seven for 86 this time. Then came a miserable show by Oxford. They were absolutely helpless before Steel and Morton (five for 11, and five for 20, respectively), and were all out for 32, the lowest innings ever recorded in a ’Varsity match. Cambridge thus won b y 238 runs, a victory which brought the results of the ’Varsity matches thus far played to 21 all. Oxford has never got level since. This, however, did not finish ’Varsity cricket ia 1878, for a match was arranged between the undefeated Cambridge team and the First Australian Eleven, whose famous game with the M .C.C. at Lord’s, followed by their victories over strong county and other sides, had made every­ one anxious to see them pitted against the L ight Blues. The game was pl-tyed at Lord’s. A. P . Lucas was prevented by illness from playing for Cambridge, and Kingston was also an absentee, their places being taken by H . Wood and C. P igg. On the other side Alec Binner- man had so badly damaged a hand as to be practically useless. The Cantabs’ unbeaten certificate never looked to be in danger. They scored 285, everyone on the side except W ood making double figures, the highest being A. Lyttelton’s 72, and A G. Steel’s 59. The Colonists could make only 111 (Murdoch 47) and 102 (C. Bannerman 26, Horan 24), and so suffered defeat ia an innings. Morton taking 12 wickets for 90 runs, and Steel 5 for 106. (Codlin was the man on this occasion, not Short.) When one con­ siders that Spofforth, Boyle, Garrett and Allan were the bowlers against them, the Cantabs’ wonderfully level scoring and fine total must be considered a really great performance. The teams in the ’Varsity match w ere: C am b r id g e Hon. Ivo Bligh, A. F. J. Ford, L. K . Jarvis, F. W . Kingston, A. P. L u cas, H o n . A . L y tte lto n , H o n . E . L y tte lto n , P. H . M o rto n , A . G . S teel, D . Q . S teel and H . W h itfeld . O x fo r d : — A . H . E va n s, A . D . G reene, A . H . H ea th , E . T. H irst, C . W . M . K em p , R. L K n ig h t, G . S. M a rriott, J . H . S avory. A J . W eb b e , H . R . W e b b e a n d A . P. W ick h a m . PRINCIPAL AVERAGES. B atting . Not * H ’st Inns. out. Buns. Aver, score. A. G. Steel (C.)........ 11 2 ... 339 ... 87-66 ... 74 Hon.E.Lyttelton(C.) 11 ...0 ... 374 ... 34-CO ... 74 H. Whitfeld (C.) ... 6 ...1 ... 159 ... 31'80 ... 81* Hon A. Lyttelton (C.) 12 ...1 ... 338 ... SO'72 .. 72 H. R. W e »e (O ) ... 8 ... 1 ... 210 ... SO'OO ... 63 A. J. Webb'e (O.) ... 8 ... 0 ... 204 ... 25 50 .. 118 B. T. Hirst (O .)......... 6 ... 0 ... 146 ... 24 33 ...114 P. H. Moiton (C.) ... 11 ... 4 ... 148 ... 21-14 ... 39 A. P. Lucas (C.) ...11 ... 1 ... 211 ... 21-10 ... 74 Bowl TNG. Overs. Runs./Wkts. Aver. A. G. Steel(C.)................ 433 ... 534 ... 71 ... 7 62 A. P. Lucas (C.) ..........149 ... 142 ... 16 ... 8 87 P. H. Morton (C .).......... 235'2 ... 327 ... 36 ... 9 08 R. L. Knight (O .).......... 1881 ... 282 ... 22 ... 12 81 A. H. Evans (O.) .......... 216-2 ... 296 ... 23 .. 12 86 (Knight and Evans each took one wicket, not in­ cluded above, in match v. Gentlemtn—no analysis.) 1879. Cambridge was nearly as strong in 1879 as in the previous year—not quite, for A. P. Lucas and Edward Lyttelton had gone down, and it cannot be said that the men who replaced them were their equals. However, the team went through the season without a defeat, and if one of the two drawn games was some­ what against them, the other was amoral victory, for another over must have given them a win. Oxford did somewhat better, winning two games to three lost (the best record they had between 1877 and 1883); but one cannot see that their side was much stronger than in the previous year, for they had lost A. J. Webbe, one of the very greatest batsmen who ever wore the Dark Blue. The other changes undoubtedly improved the side, for Fowler and Jellicoe (who had been dropped iu 1878) were quite equal to any two of the other men whose ser­ vices were lost, and W . A. Thornton was indisputably a higher class player than Savory, Marriott, or C. W . M . Kemp. But, in singular contrast to Cambridge, Oxford had, with the possible exception of W . H. Evans, no really great player in her team in 1879. Cambridge’s first match ended in a four-wickets’ win over a strong Eleven of England after a small-scoring match, in which three men stood out far in advance of their comrades in the batting line. Ephraim Lockwood carried his bat right through the first innings of the scratch team for 68, considerably more than half the total score; W . R . Gilbert made 14 and 40. On the other side, Alfred Lyttelton inaugurated his cap­ taincy by scoring 87 (57 and 30) of the 209 made from the bat b y the Light Blues. Tom Emmett had 12 wickets for 80 in the m atch ; and P. H . Moiton, in the second innings of the Eleven, bowled 74 balls for 19 runs and six wickets. A. G. Steel was not playing. H e played, however, in the next match, v. M .C.C., at Cambridge, and with 52 (the highest score of the game) and eight for 47, was undoubtedly the most prominent per­ former in the match, which the L igh t