Cricket 1900

466 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. D ec . 20, 1900. in them. I remember how annoyed he was when a young buck walked out to take his place in the field, smoking a cigar, which may or may not have hampered him when, at a critical moment in the game, he had to take an easy catch given by a prominent batsman on the other side. The catch was dropped, and the Major in his report remarked, ‘ M r .------ had an easy chance, which He let drop, on the classical grounds Ex fumo dare loosem.’ I was kept in bats— more than kept in bats—by the Major. He liked me to come to see him often, and during my stay he would remark, ‘ Robert, come up-stairs; I want to show you some bats.’ I should find forty or fifty new bats, and when he had got me to point out which I liked best, he would say, ‘ Take it with you. My days are over. You will find use for it.’ ” “ How did you manage about wicket- keeping gloves in those far-off days ? ” “ One had to make the best of things, as proper gloves had not been invented— at least I had never heard of them. For my part I used a pair of buckskin hunting-gloves, but they were not alto­ gether satisfactory. After keeping wicket to Redgate I have found the back of my hands black with bruises caused by the irritation on the palms. It is true that Redgate was an exceptionally awkward bowler to take; the ball was always turning on its axis. And when you had got it, as you thought, fairly in your hand, it would have one turn more. I consider that wicket-keeping is much easier nowadays than it used to be, partly because of the vast improvement in the gloves, partly because the wicket is so much more true and the bowling so much straighter. It is much easier to take men who bowl over the wicket than men who bowl round it, for with the latter you lose sight of the ball because of the position of the batsman.” An admirable ranconteur, the Canon has many interesting reminiscences of the Boroughbridge Club. “ We had our own old umpire,” he said, “ a butcher with a very game leg. He used to rest this leg by putting a stick under it, and was thus always standing on one le g ; the marvel is that he was never once hit. On Sundays he was a regular attendant at church, both morning and evening service, and, except during the recitation of the Creed, he sat down all the time with the game leg propped up on the seat in front of him. Yet the next day he would start out and umpire through a two-day match as fresh as possible. Once I said to him ‘ You always wait in church until all the congregation has gone.’ He replied, ‘ Yes sir, I can’t stand them Carolines, they rub against my leg so.’ Of course, he meant crinolines.’ “ In one of our matches,” continued the Canon, “ we had to make runs very quickly, and sent in a hitter who did not trouble to put on gloves and pads. He began to hit the bowlers all over the field, and the runs were rapidly being hit off, when the opposing side, goaded to rashness by the sarcasms of the spectators, pulled up the stumps and refused to go on, leaving the match in our hands. This same batsman once brought off a brilliant citch. To effect this he had to rush up to and reach over the boundary rail. To show that he had made the catch he tossed up the ball and imme­ diately collapsed. He was unconscious for a time—on recovery he played for rest of the day, and the next day as well, scoring 36 runs, besides doing a lot of fielding. When he reached home, he sent for a doctor, who discovered that he had two ribs broken. This was Yorkshire endurance indeed. In a Staf­ fordshire local match we had made 136 iu the first innings, and only required 21 when we went in the second time. When the fourth wicket fell, we had got 20 out of the 21, but the last six men were all out for nothing to a slow lob bowler with no work on him. Oddly enough, we had made another run, but as there was some little dispute about it at the time, our scorer, in a bumptious mood, said,* Ob, bother! We’ll give you the run. We can afford it easily enough.’ I had nothing to do with the football of my parish beyond supporting the club and goingto see the matches. Oncethedoctor’s son made a splendid run, which ended in a try, and I turned to an old man who was standing by me and said, ‘ That was a fine run, wasn’t it ? ’ He replied, ‘ Ah, Well, sir, there’s nothing like a bit of physic for getting through ’em.’ ” “ Was there a good cricket club at Boroughbridge when you first went tht-re ? ” “ There was a club with some good men in it, but it could hardly be called good. The ground was a field of ridge and furrow at the back of a public-house, and matches were played for a supper and a cricket-ball. All this was soon altered, and henceforth we played for the honour of winning. We always played to win, and I ’m quite sure that if you want a club to succeed you must instil an esprit de corps in its members.” “ Did you have any initiatory diffi­ culties ? ” “ None at all. Fortunately the mem­ bers of the club believed in me, and as they left everything in my hands, I was in the position of an autocratic despot. The subscription was a guinea a year, but as this was only for the wealthy, the poorer parishioners had everything found for them, the only stipulation being that they should conduct themselves in a respectable manner both on and off the field. In choosing the elevens I passed by the men who could not field, even if they could bat, for I cansidered that a good field would save more runs than a good bat would make. I remember being told, just before the University match, by Law, whose famous Oxford eleven has always been held up as a model for fields­ men, that he felt pretty sure that Oxford would lose (for on paper Cambridge were by far the stronger), but that whatever happened they would not lose through bad fielding, and fielding won the match. I saw another famous Oxford captain—Kemp—practising his field in the way which I have done myself at Boroughbridge, viz., he stood in the middle of the ground, with the team spread out round him, and hit catches with the bat. These things do not seem to be done nowadays, and I don’t think the fielding is so good that it could not b8 improved. I may add that at Borough­ bridge, when the team was driven to shelter by the rain, I always kept the players employed in athletic competitions, and they liked them. Frequently I gave a bat for boys and members for single wicket competition. There was a small entrance fee to keep out total inefficients, the fee going to the club funds. Each player opposed each other player, and I’m sure it did them all good, for it gave them confidence, having to rely entirely on themselves.” “ As a practical cricketer, have you any opinions as to whether reforms are required in the laws ? ” “ I would strictly prohibit a bowler from throwing. I must admit that I should like to see the height and width of the wicket very slightly increased; so many balls miss the wicket by a hair’s breadth. I do not at all like the idea of increasing the difficulties of umpires by making the l.b.w. rule more intricate; there is already sufficient responsibility on an umpire’s shoulders. And, moreover, there are still and always will be in minor matches, umpires of the same type as a man whom I once met in the North. He had given some startling decisions, and after the match I asked him, ‘ What is your opinion as to the duties of an umpire P” ‘ Well, sir,’ he replied, ‘ I understand that when a property is to be disposed of each side appoints an umpire, who does his best for his own side. Sj it is with cricket.’ ” “ Do you consider that umpiring in local matches is better now than it was in your early days ? ” “ Certainly it is. You do TSot, for example, meet nowadays with umpires like an old gentleman whom it was once my fortune to meet. He wore spectacles and carried an umbrella. For a time he carried out his duties to the general satisfaction, possibly because there were no appeals, but when I stumped a man who was a couple of yards out of his ground, and appealed, he said, “ Not o u t! ” in the most formal manner, not­ withstanding that the batsman made no effort to get back to his ground. We spoke to the captain of the other side, who was quite willing to let us have another umpire, explaining in an aggrieved way, ‘ You can’t expect much from him ; he never was a player, and this is the very first time he has stood as umpire! ’ I may say that I suggested to the batsman that he might as well go out on his own responsibility, but he declined to take it, and stayed in and made a good score. Or again, take the instance of the valet who was acting as umpire when his master was batting. ‘ How’s that?’ ‘ Notathome.’ ‘ What on earth do you mean ? Is it out or not ? ’ asked my lord. ‘ Well, if your lordship will have it, your lordship is out.’ On the other