Cricket 1901

2 1 8 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. J u n e 2 0 , 1 9 0 1 . A c o r r is p o n d e n t, whose word may be relied on, writes: “ On Saturday after­ noon I saw three balls bowled in three different matches as I was passing in the train from Herne H ill to Dulwich. The first ball was a shooter and bow led a m an ; the second was played to extra slip and was promptly thrown to the other end, where apparently the striker was on the point of being run out when trees intervened; the third ball was a yorker and the batsman sadly retired.” Sam Goodman, says C ricket Club L ife (Philadelphia) made one o f the biggest hits ever seen at Elmwood on May 18. W ithout much apparent effort he lifted a ball bow led by Altemus clear over the main club house, the sphere landing in the tennis courts. In the same match W ood drove one over the other house for 6 and Cregar put one over the grand stand. Three 6’s in the same match is rather an unusual record in Philadelphia. W hy it should be, goodness only knows, but it is a fact that b ig hitters are a scarce article in local American cricket. O n the subject of fielding our contem­ porary says:— The fielding in the Philadelphia-Belmont match at Elmwood was of the gilt-edged order. Chief among those to shine in this direction was “ Bart ” King, who caught no leas than three men at point, two of them being with one hand. Such catches prove how ridiculous the statement is that the fielding in ba&e-ball is so much better than in cricket. Nothing in base-ball fielding can compare with the sharp catches at point and in the slips. The outfield catches of Le Roy and Scattergood were very good, and many other men in the same match did themselves credit. It was a most brilliant game from the fielding standpoint. M r. A. E . D. L ew is, the honorary secretary of the Panther C.C., w rites:— “ Ow ing to an error in the scores o f the match between Alleyn and Panther, which appeared in your issue of 13th inst., the 101 not out was credited to A. W . Standish instead of to W . J. Standish, and I shall be glad if you could see your way to correct same in your next issue.” The mistake was not ours. T h e opening stage of the match between the Surrey Colts and Mitcham Wanderers at the Oval on Saturday last gave rise to some pretty fast scoring. Goatly and Hardy, who commenced the batting, put on the first 167 runs for the Colts in an hour, and reached the second hundred in seventy-one minutes. The innings was closed at luncheon time (1.30) with 329 up for three wickets. O f these G oatly’s share was 147 and Hardy’s 144 not out. As the Mitcham Wanderers made 218 and 86 for three wickets, the outcome o f the day’s cricket was an aggregate o f 633 runs for twenty-three wickets, as the result of six hours and a half o f actual play. The wicket, it may be stated, was pitched at the extreme lim it of the usual match ground by Clayton Street, so that the boundary on that side was very easy. H ow many Cricket readers could give off-hand the provisions of 33 b in the “ Laws of C ricket” ? I am afraid even some of the foremost cricksters of the day have hardly yet realised the not unimport­ ant addition it has made to the laws of the game. A curious illustration of the prevailing uncertainty was furnished in a match between Bickley Park and Ton­ bridge on Saturday last. One of the Tonbridge team played a ball into his pad. The wicket-keeper made for the batsman with a view no doubt to extract the ball before it touched the ground. Fully alive to the situation the batsman took it out himself and placed it on the ground. A confident appeal to the umpire was met with the reply “ not out.” T h e decision was of course accepted without demur, but a gentle remon­ strance was none the less made to the umpire on behalf of Bickley Park that he was wrong. In return, he urged that under Buie 33 b the bail was dead and that his verdict was right. And so it was. Under the old rules in such cases the batsman could be caught if the ball had not touched the ground, and more than one instance could be found in good cricket o f a batsman chased by the wicket-keeper, the one to get rid of, the other to catch the ball. I remember well one particularly humorous incident o f the kind in a match between Glouces­ tershire and Surrey in which W . G. Grace was the chief figure. In playing, the ball went into his shirt, which was loose, and it was some little time before his efforts to elude the Surrey wicket­ keeper and safely remove the ball proved successful. To meet such irregularities, an addition was made to the rules by the M .C.C. at the general meeting of the club on May 3rd, 1899, in the shape of 33 b . It reads as follow s: “ If the ball, whether struck with the bat or not, lodges in a batsman’s clothing, the ball shall become dead.” N o t that it matters much, but as a matter o f fact V . F . S., better known as Frank Crawford, did not play a ball in Surrey’s innings against Worcestershire at the Oval on Tuesday which touched the wicket without disturbing the bails, as stated in some of the dailies yesterday. The ball stopped just outside the centre of the wicket, but did not actually touch it. B y the way, the rate of scoring by Abel and Crawford at the Oval was almost identical with that of L illey and W . Smith for London County C.C. v. Cambridge University at the Crystal Palace a trifle later the same afternoon. While the two Surrey men added 227 in two hours, Lilley and Smith put on 241 in two hours and five minutes. H . S. B ush , who played two such fine innings for the Second Eleven of Surrey against Glamorganshire at the Oval at the end o f last week, is at home on leave from India. H e is a younger brother of F. W . Bush, who played for Surrey occasionally at the end of the seventies up to the middle o f the eighties, and of late years has done good service at East­ bourne with bat as well as ball. H . S. Bush, who, if I mistake not, was educated at Dove1- College, scored very heavily also at Eastbourne a few summers ago before he went with his regiment to India. Prior to the Glamorganshire match he had played very little cricket during the last three years. M r . W . P. R o b e rtso n has received his blue for Cambridge, and the captain announces that no other choices will be made before the Surrey match, which begins to-day. For Oxford E. W . Dillon, H. J . Wyld, G. W . F. Kelly and F. Findlay have received their blues. Up to Saturday, Hayward, Abel and Tyldesley were the only batsmen who had scored a thousand runs this B e a so n . But on Monday Mr. Jessop added his name to the list b y scoring 93—he stood at 946 on Saturday. Mr. W ood was at 929 on Saturday, and on Tuesday night at 963 with an innings still incomplete. Yesterday he brought his total to 1,022. By next Wednesday there may possibly, but not very probably, be an increase in the list. N o bowler has as yet taken a hundred wickets, but Rhodes is at present (W ed­ nesday) at 97, with no one very near him. I n te r v ie w e d on Monday b y a repre­ sentative of the Daily Mail, Mr. A. C. MacLaren made a statement with regard to the team which he is taking to Australia in the autumn. H is remarks may be summed up as follows :— Up to that time he had received nothing but a cablegram, and he is waiting for a letter to learn the exact terms offered. He believes that the terms will he identical with those arranged by Mr. Stoddart. He has stipulated that the team shall not play in any up-country matches, nor go to West Australia. Ho asked for permission to take an umpire. The Australians objected. He will not press the point. It is a fact that only expenses will be paid to the amateurs who go, and this would be a big sacrifice to many. Yery few gentlemen who are at present playing cricket can afford to neglect their business for a whole year. Ranjitsinhji will not go. Mr. Jessop and Mr. Foster are anxious to go. He recognises that the chief difficulty will be to find bowlers. Our bowling is worse to­ day than it has ever been. He will let the season become further advanced before he definitely chooses any of the side. A co rre s p o n d e n t w rites: “ I have a suggestion to make which, if it were carried out universally in first-class and club cricket, would have the effect, so much desired b y some, of bringing the scores down to the level of what they were years ago. M y suggestion is ex­ tremely simple and practicable. Pitch one of your wickets in the out-field, and the other on the prepared turf. This will give the bowlers a chance at one end and the batsmen at the other— and not too much chance to batsmen because the wicket at their special end is certain not to be quite as good as it would be a few