Cricket 1901

S e p t . 19, 1901. CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 421 R E V IE W OF TH E SEASON. A YEAR OF ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS. From the beginning of the new century until the second match between Surrey and Yorkshire for the benefit of Lock­ wood, cricketers have always had some­ thing of more than passing interest to occupy their attention. Has there by any chance been no startling performance by C. B. Fry or Ranjitsinhji, or the Yorkshire eleven, there has been subject for loss of temper in the Mold-Phillips controversy, in the representative (or unrepresentative) character of MacLaren’s team, in the general decline or advance­ ment of the game. Before a ball was bowled this season the action of the county captains in condemning certain bowlers and asking the various com­ mittees to warn other bowlers afforded weeks of animated discussion, in which somereputations suffered while few gained in lustre. This controversy had hardly died out when everybody began to give his opinion on the proposed new law of leg-before-wicket, and although cricketers at large, as well as many who were most in favour of the rule, quite misunderstood its application, it was a subject upon which everybody was more or less enthusiastic. “When the actual season began, so many of the grounds had suffered from the effects of the cold winds on the turf that the millenium seemed to have come; in other words, scores were, on the whole, so small that talk of reforms was for the time being banished. Then came the rain, and the bowlers had such a harvest while its effects lasted that no one dreamed that in a few weeks, when the rain had had time to do good, records would be made in alarming numbers. At the beginning of the season there was little talk of Fry and Ranjit­ sinbji, but when once these two great batsmen got into form, their deeds were the subject of wonder for week after week. Ranjitsinbji did not play in quite as many innings as Fry and he seemed a little over­ shadowed in the long run, but over and over again he played magnificent cricket, and whether the wicket was good or bad, he was as likely as not to demoralise the bowlers. Even when he played an innings of twenty or so there was something in his style which marked him out as being by far the most accom­ plished batsman of the day. The mere number of runs, more or less, which he made was not the touchstone of his skill, for luck and accident may cut short a prospective score at any time; it was the absolute ease and grace with which he batted, and which made all the bowlers look simple, that marked him out as an artist—a master who stood alone in his particular school. Foremost among the masters of the other schools stands C. B. Fry, without any question. He has done marvellous things this year, and is un­ doubtedly a greater cricketer than he was last year; there are many who think that he is the greatest cricketer the world has ever seen, but it will be time to think about that when he has played for another twenty years or so, for to hold this position it is not enough for a man to be able to point to his splendid performances for two or three seasons. But as regards the past season’s cricket no one will question that the name of C. B. Fry has to be placed first as the man who has done more wonderful things than any other batsman in the season. His feat of scoring six consecutive innings of a hun­ dred in first-class matches is likely to remain a record for a very long time, possibly for ever. He and Ranjitsinhji are the two men most to be feared in Eng­ land on a wicket which helps the bowlers. In certain ways Abel’s batting stands out as the most remarkable of the year. He has played more innings than anybody else and made more runs, having indeed beaten Ranjitsinbji’s famous record of 3159 which was made in 1899. He has not played many mammoth innings, but has been remarkably consistent from first to last, and if he lives many years more it will begin to be recognised in time that his runs have been made against tbe fastest bowling of the day, as well as against the slowest. For many years he has made his two thousand runs in a season, and it is not a little remarkable that in his forty-second year he should have beaten all previous records. If his fielding was half as good as his batting he would always be among the first three or four men picked to represent England. For some reason or other the great deeds of Tyldesley have not attracted as much attention as they deserved this year. He nearly always made runs, and often made very big scores, on good and bad wickets alike, but, perhaps because he did not often play a startling innings, his praises have been sung in a minor key. L. C. H. Palairet, who comes fourth in the averages, deserves his position. He it was who showed a waiting world what could be done with the famous Yorkshire bowling, an example which was so promptly followed by Fry, Killick, and G. L. Jessop. In point of style L. C. H. Palairet has no superiors, and as this year he has been at the very top of his game, his performances have been most highly appreciated by all who were for­ tunate enough to see them. That W. G. Quaife and Kinneir, the two most promi­ nent representatives of the stickers, should have come out so high up in the averages, with such excellent records, is quite one of the features of the year’s cricket; they have both done very great things. Throughout the season Hay­ ward has played the steadiest and most painstaking of games, and at no time, even in his biggest innings, has he made runs at a fast rate, but it must be remembered that over and over again he has had to bat when Surrey seemed in a desperate position, and that by his steadiness he has done much to retrieve the fortunes of the side. It is very few men indeed who can play a fast game one day and a slow game on the next morn­ ing according to circumstances, and when a batsman gets into a certain style he generally finds that he has to stick to it. In the later part of the season Hayward did not make as many fine scores as usual, but he would still be chosen in the best England eleven. R. E. Foster has done exceedingly well, and has nearly always made runs; if he had been a member of the team of a powerful county he would have come even more to the front than he has done. Anyone who saw him for the first and only time in that terrible second innings of his in the match between the Gentlemen and the Players at Lord’s would have not the remotest idea of what sort of a batsman he really is; but happily his reputation does not rest on one innings. C. McGahey has had a most successful season, being nearly always certain to make a useful score on any wicket, and often distin­ guishing himself when others failed. He has occasionally got into a groove from which he could not extricate himself, and but for this he might perhaps have taken an even higher place among the greatest batsmen of the day. To see an innings by A. O. Jones has been the object of many cricketers in their pilgrimage to the county ground on which he wass playing, for he has nearly always made a lot of runs in such brilliant style that the most blase of spectators was aroused from his lethargy. The return of F. L. Fane to form has been most welcome, for he is a pretty bat to watch, and although he bas not play ed very many innings he has very frequently given a splendid exhibition of the game. Of the men who come below the twelfth place in the averages G. L. Jessop must be first referred to. He spoiled his record by playing a series of insignificant innings toward the end of the season, but until then his hitting had been the theme of admiration on every cricket ground and in every newspaper. It must be a long time since he has heard his batting de­ scribed as reckless, risky, and rash, for all the world now recognises that there is very much method in its apparent mad­ ness. At the very end of the season he played the crowning innings of his career against the Yorkshire bowling, and it was an innings which nobody who saw it will ever forget. But for him Glouces­ tershire would have been in an unhappy position this year, but when it comes to declaring an innings closed, it is a very plucky captain who will give Gloucester­ shire reasonable time in which to make the runs with Jessop in the team. He still has no imitators in first-class cricket and is perhaps the only successful player since the game was instituted whose methods have not been followed by scores of other men. Long may he wave ! But if other men have not imitated his system of play, it is obvious that he has influenced many, for there are more quick scorers (although very few big hitters) now than ever, and the ordeal of watching a first-class match has lost half its terrors. It is a thousand pities that H. J. Sinclair never got really going during his stay in England, for he showed clearly enough on several occasions that if he had been in form he would have rivalled the doings of the great hitters who have passed out of first-class cricket. Several men who were not much heard