Cricket 1900

“ Together joined in Cricket’s manly toil.”— Byron. no. 551 . v o i . x ix . T H U E S D A Y , A U G U S T 16, 1900. p b i o b aa. CHATS ON THE CRICKET FIELD. MR. C. E. DE TRAFFORD. A fast-footed hitter, Mr. de Trafford is a terror to bowlers if he is allowed to get settled, and to miss him in the first two or three overs is oonsidered by a bowler to be a crime of the deepest dye. His hitting is hard and clean, and though it sometimes looks reckless, it is the sort of hitting which may win a match before the opposing side has taken in the situa­ tion. One can hardly imagine a greater pleasure than to watch Mr. de Trafford when he is batting on one of his most successful days, for one cannot possibly become tired of his strokes, which are well calculated to rouse the most blast! spectator to en­ thusiasm. He has played very many fine innings for Leicestershire, and not the least important of them was one in which he only made about 60 at Leeds against Yorkshire. But the wicket was in a terribly bad con­ dition owing to heavy rains, and the innings won a very low scoringmatch for Leices­ tershire. As captain of the Leicestershire eleven Mr. de Trafford has had an un­ thankful task; he has had to deal with a disheartened team, but he has at last the satisfaction of knowing that the oounty has turned the comer. And Leicestershire men are all fully aware that for this they have in no small measure to thank their energetic captain. Perhaps the very best of the many fine innings played by Mr. de Trafford was his 110 for North v. South, at Hastings, in 1894. In the first innings he did not make any runs, and as his finger was split by a ball from Lockwood he went in late in the second innings. “ It was four o’clock,” he said, “ when I joined Ernest Smith. We both started to hit, and in an hour and a-half had put on 254 runs, of which Smith’s share was 144 and mine a hundred. It is not very often that two men hit hard at the same time, but in this case it worked very well, as things turned out. The upshot of it all was that instead of being beaten by an innings, as seemed very probable at one time, we were in an excellent position on the third morning.” “ Is this the innings which you would look back on with greater pleasure than on any other ? ” “ I don’t quite know. I was very pleased last year after the match against Derbyshire, when they declared their innings closed at a quarter to four and left us to make 227 runs. Knight and I went in first, and when stumps were drawn we had knocked off 196 of the runs without loss. I went in with the intention of hitting as hard as I could, thinking that whatever happened there was no harm in trying, for as the wicket was good the rest of the team would have held out easily enough. It was a peculiar thing in that innings that although my score was 117, and, although I was hitting very hard, I only made four 4’s, which I should think was a much lower propor­ tion of 4’s than is to be found in most innings of a hundred. The explanation is that there were about five men in the long field on the boundary, so that the hardest hit seldom got through.” Mr. de Trafford was at school at Beaumont College, a Catholic school just oppo­ site the famous “ Bells of Ousley.” “ We had good cricket there,” he said, “ and at the beginning of the season had a professional whose name was Errinton; I have seen him at the Oval, and I fancy that he was en­ gaged on the ground staff. I was in the eleven in 1880, 1881, 1882 and 1883 as a batsman and a field, never having given any signs of being a bowler, and I believe I was always top of the averages. We had a good wicket and played some good clubs, beating among others a strong team of the M.C.C., which included Wheeler, Scotton and Gunn; a good lot in those days for a school eleven to tackle. My brother, Sir Humphrey de Trafford, was in the eleven with me; he was a pretty good slow bowler. During the time that I was at school someone shot at the Queen, and an address was presented to her by Beaumont College. I remember that the Queen drove up to the school, and that in the absence of my brother I had to read the address. Fortunately I had not much time to be very nervous (although I believe that I MB. C. E. DE TRAFFORD. {From a Photo by C. Pickering , Leicester.)