Cricket 1901

Nov. 28, 1901. CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 459 THE ADELAIDE MATCH. The following article on the above match from the pen of A. G. Hales, the war correspondent, appeared in the Daily Express of November 13th, and will be found interesting to our readers. “ Off and on for twenty years I have known the Adelaide Oval, the place where every English team makes its bow to the Australian public, and that knowledge made me smile when I read Reuter’s message stating that the Adelaide wicket had worn badly, had cut up, or something to that effect. “ If old Jesse Hide, the English pro­ fessional who laid that wicket down when I was only a lad, is alive to-day, I think he would smile also, because the Adelaide wicket is probably the very finest ‘ billiard table ’ in existence. Melbourne people are proud of their peerless race-course ; Sidney folk are vain of their harbour, but the crowd in the ‘ holy city ’ are devotod to their cricket Oval. When things are going badly with an English team in Adelaide, and the news comes along that the wicket played badly, just smile, and ask for the salt, and then substitute ‘ men ’ for wicket. “ The real truth of the matter is this— the visiting team has not got into its stride. When they play in Adelaide for the first time they have not got their land legs; they have not got used to the glaring white light of the southern metropolis—a light remarkaby near akin to the dazzling sunlight of the African veldt. They get straight off a steamer, and stand up to bat on a wicket that plays so fast that a ball comes off the whitey brown turf like a flash of lightning —and they meet George Giffen. THE GRAND OLD MAN. “ Can anyone remember when an Eng­ lish eleven landed in Adelaide without finding George ready and waiting with his belt slack to make room for scalps ? Away in the mining camps and on the sheep and cattle runs fellows discuss the coming of an English eleven for months before they arrive, and the hope is fer­ vently expressed that old George will be in form with the ball. Others may do well or ill, but the game will turn on Giffen’s prowess. So they wonder and speculate until the itch gets too strong. Then into the saddle, and off to the nearest railway station for tickets to the city to see “ our fellows ” battle with the Britishers. “ If Giffen is in form with the ball the soul of the Australian “ sport ” feels warm within him, for on that wicket, whose every mood he knows better than Johnson knew his dictionary, Giffen will shake the nerve of the finest batsmen living, for he plays cricket as Roberts plays billiards. All Australia watches Giffen on those occasions, and the crowd, most of whom have grown up with him from boyhood, know to a nicety what form he is in before he has sent down a dozen balls. “ If he is out of form, he is one of the simplest bowlers in the world to play, because for the time being his cunning | entirely forsakes him. JONES THE TERROR. “ Adelaide has only one other bowler of any note, and England knows him so well that there is little room for comment here. The lightD iD g trundler Jones has no cunning, no finesse. He relies upon his tremendous speed, and how fast he can be, only those who have seen him in the pink of health under a hot su i on an Adelaide wicket can tell. " None of the others on the South Australian side are great bowlers, though now and again they come off. Still, with Jones and Giffen in form with the ball, the English batsmen would in their unready state get one of the most severe trials of the whole tour. “ I wish Fry had gone with the Eng­ lish team. I watched him pretty closely during the last season, and he struck me as being peculiarly the sort of batsman to suit Australian wickets and Australian bowlers. On the Adelaide wicket, against Giffen, he would have been worth much, very much, to MacLaren, for he might have held the Australian champion at bay, and so put heart into his comrades. To my mind Fry is the one man who was indispensable to the success of an English eleven in Australia. “ The Adelaide match has a peculiar significance to the Australian cricket world, because then the Britishers meet one or two of the bowlers who will figure against them in the test matches, and they also meet one, or a pair, of the greatest batsmen they will have to con­ tend against when facing All Australia. “ This time they had to meet Giffen, Jones, and Clem. Hill. None of the others are phenomena, though Jack McKenzie, the wicket- keeper, is a sound, stout-hearted player, who can always be relied upon to do all that is in him. He is one of those men who usually play a bit above his ordinary form if the game is going against his side. “ Clem. Hill is not a batsman in the ordinary sense of the term; he is a run- getting machine, warranted to work on all occasions, under all sorts of circum­ stances. He has never had an equal in Australia as a run-getter on all kinds of wickets. As I heard a German cricket enthusiast once exclaim : ‘ The-e-e Bank of England, she may fail, but Clem. Hill ne-e-evare.’ THE OTHER MEN. “ Jack Reedman, the skipper of the team, h s been playing the game ever since he could crawl. There is a legend in North Adelaide to the effect that his nurse enticed him to give up his feeding- bottle by bribing him with a cricket bat. He is a fair change bowler, who some­ times has a streak of genius ; a moderate bat, who at times gets hold of the bowl­ ing ; and a superb field, working un­ ceasingly through a three days’ match under a blazing sun. If Eeedman misses a catch in a big match the schoolboys ask for a holiday on the score that the end of all things can’t be far off. “ Hack is a dashing batsman at times, hitting all round the wicket, and I think that if he shows the necessary staying power in the big matches of the season he may be a member of the next team that visits England. He is a good field. “ Leak is a member of a family that used to make hundreds very comfortably in club matches, but had a queer knack of failing in big cricket, owing to over­ anxiety to excel. If he could get going in internationals as he does in club games he would be a terror. If Travers is Joe of that ilk whom I used to know—and 1 can’t think of any other cricketer of that name who could have leapt to the front—then he is a medium paced bowler with a nasty break from the leg, a brilliant field, and a very moderate bat. About Matthews I know nothing of my own knowledge. “ In conclusion, I would advise all those critics who are predicting the utter failure of MacLaren’s team on account of the Adelaide game to “ go slow,” because the best batsmen they will have to meet even in the test matches is Hill; the best bowler they will have to face will not be better than Giffen in form ; and the Britishers will then have buckled down to business. They will have got into their stride ; they will have that snap and swing which only comes of actual fighting matches; they will know the nature of the turf they are playing on, and they will be used to the glaring light, which at this time of the year is very intense south of the line.” KENT COUNTY CLUB. The autumn meeting of the Committee of the Kent County Cricket Club was held at the Golden Cross Hotel, Charing Cross, on Monday, November 4th, The income of the past season showed an increase above the average for the the previous three years, under the three principal headings, from subscriptions and fees £285, from Canterbury Week £146, and from Home Matches, £487. In consequence of this prosperity, and helped by the sale of £526 12s. Consols., it has been possible to reduce the balance owing on the loan for building the new Pavilion from £2,000 to £1,300, to write off the sum of £720 17s. 8d. which stood at the debit of the new Pavilion account in October, 1900, and to pay £252 18s. 6d. to Walter Wright’s benefit, and to carry forward £498 5s. 5d. It was decided to play out and home matches next season with Essex, Glou­ cestershire, Hants, Lancashire, Middle­ sex, Notts, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex, Worcestershire and Yorkshire, one with the Australians and one with M.C.C., also second eleven matches with Middlesex and Essex. The home matches of these to be played on the following grounds: — Three at Canterbury, three at Tonbridge, two at Tunbridge Wells (in one week if possible), two at Catford, one at Graves­ end, and one at Maidstone.- Bssex and Surrey are to appear in the Canterbury week, Lancashire and Gloucestershire in the Tonbridge week, and Sussex at Tun­ bridge Wells. The match with the Australians to be at Canterbury on August 21st.