Cricket 1901

Nov. 28, 1901. CRICKET r 1 WEEKLY RECORD OP THE GAME. 457 tunity of hibernating in a more congenial clime than England in preparation for next summer. He is on his way out to New Zealand to coach the Hawkes Bay Club. He is, of course, returning for English cricket in 1902. S y d n e y G r e g o r y , who captains the New South Wales Eleven, now has a younger brother Charles, who bids fair to maintain the family reputation on the cricket field. He was unfortunate enough in his first international match for New South Wales v. Mr. MacLaren’s team last week to get his legs in the way of a ball from Braund each innings, scoring only three in the match. He had been making runs freely just before. One performance in particular merits notice. This was for Waverley v. Redfern, at Sydney on October 5th, when his brother (S. E.) and he put on 223 runs in an hour and forty minutes. Thb following extract from the Sydney Referee, of October 12th, makes the announcement in a London daily a few weeks ago from their Sydney correspondent, that no one out there had heard of the proposed visit of an Australian team to England next summer, read a little foolish :— T h e county secretaries w ill meet early in D ecem ber to arrange the E n glish programm e for 1902. A cablegram published in Syd n ey yesterday states th at M r. C. W . A lco ck (who in variably m akes p re­ lim in ary arrangem ents for the A u s­ tralians) has received promises of m atches from m ost of the counties for an A ustralian E leven n ext year. I t w ill then be three years since the last team visited E n glan d . I t was th ough t some tim e ago that the postponem ent of the visit of the E n glish team to A ustralia m igh t lead up to the p utting off of the A ustralian trip fo r a year. I t is tolerably w ell know n, however, th at the A ustralian players are desirous of goin g to E n glan d in 1902. Une is sure that th is arrangem ent w ill not be unpopular w ith the A ustralian cricketin g public, w h ile there are such able players in the fro n t ran k out here. T h e cricket public of Sydney will have their fair share of first- class cricket this season. What with the two interstate matches against Victoria and South Australia respectively, the double trial of New South Wales against the Englishmen and the two test matches, there will be plenty of attraction for the habitues of the Association ground in the Capital of the Senior State of the Commonwealth. T h e recent match between Mr. Mac­ Laren’s team and South Australia, it may be of interest to some Cricket readers to know, is the eighth eleven-a-side match between South Australia and an English team. Of the eight the Englishmen have won three, South Australia two, and the other three have been drawn. Prior to this last contest, Clem. Hill averaged 120 runs per innings for South Australia in this series. T h e genial little doctor who stone­ walled so successfully for Leicestershire, it is pleasant to think, thoroughly en­ joyed himself in county cricket last summer. In any case, Dr. Macdonald is such an enthusiast that his opinions on English cricket are entitled to respect. This ia how he expressed himself in a letter to the editor of the Sydney Referee :— “ I have ju st finished m y season here, and a very jo lly and delightful experience it has been, to. . . It is a great change p layin g on the E n glish w ickets after the hard, true A ustralian wickets. T h e chief difference is, of course, the pace ; and then, again, the w ic­ kets on the different C ounty grounds vary such a lot. T h e ball has a great tendency to ‘ fly ’ on some of the w ickets, and fast bowlers m ake the most of th is. I had m y fingers badly knocked about several tim es, K o rt­ righ t splitting one p retty bad ly. I t was a great pleasure and honour for m e to meet MB. L . O. 8. POIDEVIN, The hero of the New South Wales Match. (Photo by Kerry.) W . G . on the field. I found him a dear old chap, w ith a kind w ord to say about ev e ry ­ one. . . . H ow I w ish U. I>. F ry was com ing out w ith M acLaren. I th in k th at battin g could not be brought to a higher pitch than F ry ’ s this season. H is b attin g is the h igh -w ater m ark of cricket, and I cannot conceive how it could ever be excelled. The fastest, and, I think, one of the m ost extra­ ordinary bowlers in E n glan d is W ilson, of W orcestershire. H e bow ls alm ost the pace Richardson did three years ago, and makes the ball swerve both w ays. H e does not seem to last very lon g so, and th at is the reason he is not up at the top.” The great all-round cricketer of the earlier Australian teams, H. F. Boyle to wit, is at the present time overseer to a body of men who cut tracks over the mountains to the mining settlements of south-eastern Gippsland. During the winter he was several times snowed in. Last season he played several games with the Toongabbie Club, and still bowled his old length. W h ic h of us very old cricket folk can forget that memorable first appearance of anAustralian team at Lord’s in 1878, when Boyle and Spofforth dismissed the pride of M.C.C. and Ground for a paltry score of 19 ? And the recollection of that sensational win of the Australians at the Oval in 1882, when Boyle and Spofforth were again the destroying angels, and England had to go down beaten by only seven runs ! Poor dear old Bob Thoms, how aptly he summed it up when the end came. “ The balls are over, gentle­ men, and the best side has won ! ” T h e Rev. William Hill Tucker died at Brighton on the 10th inst., aged ninety-nine. He played for Eton against Harrow, at Lord’s, in 1818. T h e Surrey eleven, as is usual in the case of an Australian visit, will have a more than usually heavy programme, which is saying a good deal, to get through next year. In addition to home and home matches, with all the other fourteen first-class counties, they are to play the Australians, Oxford and Cambridge, and the London County C .C .; all these making a total of thirty-six first-class matches in all. T o get through this they will have, in all likelihood, to begin on April 5 and finish on September 6. As will be gathered from a report of the annual meeting of the Kent County C.C., in another part of the paper, Essex and Surrey are, as last summer, to provide the at­ traction, of course, in conjunction with Kent for the Canterbury week of 1902. The Australians are to visit Canterbury as usual, but not in “ the week.” They are to play there on August 21 and two following days. L. O. S. P o id e v in , who played such a brilliant second innings for New South Wales against the English cricketers this week, is one of the small band of cricketers who have made a hundred in their first big match. In his case, the first big match wae the Inter­ colonial between New South Wales, and South Australia, at Sydney, early in January of this year. It was Poidevin’s debut for New South Wales in the Sheffield Shield Competition, and he celebrated it fittingly by making 140 not out. The match in question, as some may remember, produced a double record for first-class cricket. The total of 918 by New South Wales is the largest so far made in a first-class match. Besides Poidevin, S. E. Gregory (168), M. A. Noble (153), R. A. Duff (119, and F. A.