Cricket 1900

“ Together joined in Cricket’s manly toil.”— Byron. h o . 6 5 3 . v o l . x i x . THURSDAY, AUGUST 30, 1900. p m c h a d . CHATS ON THE CRICKET FIELD. M R . S. W . SP R O S TO N . One of the most useful men in the W est Indian Team , M r. Sproston has taken the place of M r. Warner as captain whenever the latter has been unable to play, and has proved a most efficient substitute. N o t the least of his virtues as a captain has been his ability to win the toss, a department of the game in which M r. W arner has m ost certainly not followed the example of the Australian captains of late years. M r. Sproston, who showed sound judgm ent in changing his field, having studied the methods of the Australians chiefly from re­ ports of their matches, acted as captain ten times, w inning the toss five and losing it five times. Under his leader­ ship the team was victorious five times out of the total of five victories, although it must not be forgotten that when they began to win the W est Indians were a vastly improved team . M r. Spros­ ton was fifth in the list of averages, w ith a highest score of 118 against L iver­ pool and D istrict, and he is decidedly entitled to look back on the tour with] great satisfaction. W ith regard to his im - ressions of the tour, M r. proston sa id : “ W e have been more successful than we anticipated, for we came across w ith the idea that we m ight w in — perhaps one or two matches, certainly not more. But the team has wonderfully improved since the tour began, though the fielding has sometimes been a little slack, which was, I suppose, inevitable w ith men who had never been accustomed to play for day after day. The grounds are so hard in the W est Indies that when a ball is hit with force past a fieldsman, he can in most cases stand where he is, for it would be impossible to overtake it, and it has not been easy to get out of standing still here. W e began very badly in the way of missed catches, and a tremendous lot of runs were made against us in conse­ quence. M ost of the men who made a hundred against us were dropped, but perhaps our worst exhibition was when we missed a Gloucestershire man four times in a few overs; we were not punished for this as w e deserved, for he only made a very few runs. B u t the fielding had vastly improved before the end of the tour, and so had the bow lin g.” “ W h at is the chief lesson which the team has learnt in batting ? ” “ N o t to be in too great a hurry to win a match at one stroke. In the colonies a man goes in to make runs as quickly as he can, for our time is lim ited; we cannot play after half-past five or a quarter to six. The consequence is that men don’t waste time in playing themselves in. W e did not discover that this was a m is­ take in three-day matches until about half the tour was over. But we have never gone in for the system of deadly slow scoring which is adopted b y so m any players over here, for it is not in accord­ ance w ith the W est Indian disposition. In one of our matches our opponents took over an hour to make about forty runs, but we should never admire that kind of play, and for m y own part I think that more games are lost by it than w on.” “ D id you think that the bow ling would be chiefly in fa u lt? ” “ W e ll, we came over w ith h alf-a-dozen men w ith repu­ tations, but only one really reliable fast bowler. On the whole they have done much better than I expected, thanks, perhaps, to the system of changing them very frequently in the manner of the Australians— a system in which I am a firm believer, especially when you have a lot of men, any one of whom m ay get w ickets, even if he is not a great bow ler.” M r. Sproston speaks en­ thusiastically of the keenness of the coloured members of the team . A s an instance of their eagerness to do all that was possible, he mentioned an incident which occurred in the Gloucestershire match. “ H inds went on to b ow l,” he said, “ and would not have a man out in the country. Townsend hit a b all which went past him towards the boundary, and two or three of the team were proceeding to go after it. B u t H inds waved them back, calling out, * Leff all to m e, I’m going for it,’ a n d he went after it at a tremendous pace, leaving everybody else far behind. Occasionally the coloured MR. S. W . SPB08T0N. (FromaPhotoby W. BroughtonASon , Norwich.)