Cricket 1899

“ Together joined in Cricket’s manly toll.”— Byron. wo. 510 . v o x ., x v i i i . THURSDAY, JUNE 1 , 1 8 9 9 p r i c e 2 d. A CHAT ABOUT WILFRED FLOWERS. In the year 1878 the following remarks appeared in “ Wisden ” : —“ Two of the colts of 1877 — Mr. A. Cursham and Wilfred Flowers—were sufficiently successful with the bat to warrant hopes of their giving yeoman service to the Notts cricket of the future ; indeed, there is pleasing promise of the lad Flowers becoming a most useful all-round man to his county if he will 3 o n - tinue making practice, patience and good conduct his ‘ cricketer’s guide ’ ; and it is pleasing to know Flowers is engaged at Lords for 1878.” Flowers may or may not have read this and have acted upon the advice given in the paragraph; it is certain that in after years he made ‘ ‘ practice, patience andgood con- duct” his “ cricketers’ guide,” and as he had a fund of quiet humour he became one of the most popular professionals of his time. His first match for Nottinghamshire was played against Lancashire at Trent Bridge on June 11th, 12th and 13th, in 1877 ; hi* last was against Sussex in 1896, on August 27th, 28th, 29th. He finished his career for the county by making scores of 24 and 107, so that he made one of the most remarkable exits on record. Like Barnes, his companion in many a long partnership, he was an all-round man. As imperturbable as Harry Trott, he was a splendid man to have on a side when things were going badly. Was there a time when men’s hearts were failing them because their position seemed hopeless—was the game in such a critical state that a mistake in batting and bowling would make all the difference between losing and winning—were a couple of batsmen treating every artifice of the bowlers with scorn —at such times Flowers was the man for the emergency. “ Ner­ vousness ” was not a wordwhich couldbe found in his dictionary, and it math u d nothing to him whether other batsmen were breaking down, or whether other bowlers were ab­ solutely ineffective. If he received a ball which was too good for him it was Kismet, if not, there was no frightening him out. In the same way, when he was put on to bowl, he took up the ball with the intention of giving the batsman all the trouble he possibly could. If he was hit all over the field it was again Kismet, but it was not because he was too nervous to do his best. As a bowler, he did not gain his reputation by any exceptional cleverness in the variation of his pace or pitch; he was not the man to lead a batsman on by inch after inch until the fatal half-inch proved too much for him— indeed, it has be<n said of him that the W ILFRID FLOWERS. (From a Photo by E. Hawkins and Co., Brighton.) variation of his pace was sometimes so subtle that it would have entirely escaped notice if it had been measured by machinery. It is true that he hai a favourite ball, which he pro­ ducedonrare occasions, describingitas a “ head ball” ; and he rejoiced exceedingly when it came off by a fortunate chance. But with him the ball was always ‘ ‘ there, or thereabouts,” and it was very seldom indeed that a loose one came in the way of abatsman. He was one of the few men to whom a strong wind was not hateful. When he was bowling against the wind his bowling seemed so absurdly easy, that many a batsman has thought to himself that his time had come to make a glorious hit right out of the ground. But there was a world of deception caused by the wind, and the ball had a way of hanging at just the moment when it ought to have come on, and a stroke which from the pavilion looked un­ utterably feeble was the result. When Flowers was. in really good form his bat seemed to be about six inches in width— there was no getting the ball out of the way of it. He hit very hard, and sometimes mid- off had to stop about three balls in the over for long intervals. If he had only been able to make this stroke in such a way that mid-off could not get to the ball he would have made hun­ dreds of runs ^by it which never appeared in the score book. Fortunately for the bowlers the wind was in this case tempered to the shorn lamb. In the M.C.C. matches against Schools, Flowers was altogether in his element. No one who ever saw him surround- 3d by a crowd of boys, taking their chaff in the most good- humoured manner, and in his turn teasing his listeners by re­ marks which seemed to be shrouded in mystery, could doubt that here was one of the most popular professionals of the day. If he made a duck’s egg he seemed just as satisfied as if he had been the hero of the day in batting, and when pressed to explain what sort of a ball it was that bowled him, he was never known to be unequal to the occasion. In one of the M.C.C. matches against a school, he had to field in the country after a spell of bowling which had not resulted in his taking any wickets. A very small boy, who had patronised him a little before the match, now approached him with the remark : “ You seem a little off colour to-day, Flowers.” “ Well, you see, Sir,” replied Flowers, “ Mycroft (or perhaps it was Morley) is a colt, and you have to be very careful not to get all the wickets when a coltis bowling at tha other end, for they break their hearts if they