Cricket 1901

A p r i l 11, 1901. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 57 Kelly. In variety of bow ling the team would be stronger than that of 1899, but possibly weaker in batting. A sin g u l a r thing happened over the Redfem v. Central Cumberland match, which was to have been played at Parramatta, says the Sydney Mail. One of the Central Cumberland team, without authority, rang up a Redfem man on the telephone on Saturday morning and informed him that it was either raining there or likely to rain. The result of that communication was that only two of R edfem eleven visited Parramatta; the umpires were there and so were the local players. It looks very much like a forfeit to Central Cumberland. The Redfem team were of course at fault in acting upon such a message. I n a letter received b y Frank Sugg, the well-known old Lan cashire batsman, from Pte. Thomas Fawcett, K in g’s Liverpool Regiment, Pretoria, occurs the follow in g:— “ We played a hig match here last Saturday. You 'will he surprised to hear that I am coach to the Pretoria team while I remain here, although there is not the same remuneration for it as there is in the Old Country. The garrison, with Major Poore, captain, played Pretoria. . I was playing with Pretoria, and, having won the toss, went in first, and scored 43, when I was caught hy Major Poore. We made 204, the garrison made 168. Major Poore scored 100 in marvellous style. He was out from the last hall howled. lie could not get anyone to stay with him, and at one time he made the bowling come to him for nine overs in succession. I was pleased to see him in such good form. I got two wickets for 25—Capt. Hudson, Liverpool Regiment, and Captain Sydney, hoth good men. Then Maj or Poore got set, and you know with what results. Dr. Thornton, who formerly played with Middlesex, bowled right through the innings. You will, of course, know him. He came out here early last year.” T h e follow ing comments of an Aus­ tralian critic on the new left-hand bowler, who has done so well for Victoria during the Australian season just closing, will be of interest:— John Saunders, the Victorian left-hand bowler, was unheard of at the beginning of last season. In the first matches Victoria v. South Australia and Victoria v. New South Wales he was not chosen. Making his first appearance in a first-class match thirteen months ago on the Melbourne ground, against (South Australia, he met with immediate success, taking six for 71 in the second innings. He has, altogether, played in only seven first-class matches, and has achieved undoubtedly good performances in each, having captured close upon fifty wickets. Saunders has developed quickly as a bowler, and he is now recognised as the left-hand bowler Australia has been looking for. T h e Queensland Sportsman points o u t that in the recent match between Victoria and New South Wales, resulting in such a glorious victory for the Victorians with only a wicket to fall, New South Wales actually scored 44 more runs from the bat than their conquerors. It was the difference of 45 runs in the matter of “ extras” that cost New South Wales the match. C l e m H il l has an increasingly dangerous rival as a batsman in Victor Trumper, who may fairly be classed on the last season’s form as the best all round cricketer in Australia. Victor Trumper is the only Australian, which means, of course, the only batsman, who has made a hundred against Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, and New Zealand. W ith the exception of South Australia he has scored over 200 runs in an innings against each of them— 292 not v. Tasmania, 253 v. New Zealand, 230 v. Victoria, and 208 v. Queensland. His best score against South Australia has been 165. In the matches he has played for New South Wales against Victoria he has only missed double figures in one innings. K . E. B u b n , who was the mainstay of Tasmanian batting long before C. J. Eady came to the /ront as one of its very best all round cricketers, has still no superior out there as a run getter. In a match against J. R . W ood’s eleven, played at Hobart on February 7th and 8th, while Eady failed to score, he made 104 of South Tasmania’s total of 282 from the bat. On the other side were two New South Wales medicos well known some years ago in England, W . C. Wilkinson, who played once or twice for Middlesex, and R. J. Pope, who while graduating at Edinburgh University assisted one of the earlier Australian teams in one or two of their less important matches. A c h e e r y letter has just reached me from the old Incog., H on. J. S. Udal. For some time Attorney-General of the F iji Islands, he is now Acting Chief Justice of the Leeward Islands, West Indies. He was pleased to find a nice little cricket ground in Antigua where his residence is, and indeed the ground has a good reputation, being described by Mr. P. F. Warner in his recent book “ Cricket in Many Climes,” as one of the best in the West Indies. T h e natives seemed to have derived great pleasure from seeing their Chief Justice play cricket, and seem to wonder, as one of them put it, how he could do it. All the same, the interchange of cricket amenities between the chief and the natives must make for the general good, whatever attitude the former may by force of circumstances have to take under other conditions. Already he is able to notice an increase of keenness in the cricket at Antigua, and he hopes that by and bye they may be able to give a better account of themselves than they did against the last English teams. To make a good fight of it against the Englishmen, in his opinion, the side should be a Leeward Islands Eleven, taken from all the Presidencies. The individual teams are too weak. A t a meeting of the general committee of the M .C.C., held on April 1st, the follow ing resolution was passed :— That this committee approve of the prin­ ciple of the action taken by the captains, but are of opinion that it would be expedient to postpone the actual suspension of any bowler during the coming season, in the hope that this course may strengthen the hands of the umpires, without being unnecessarily drastic. E a r l y in the month Mr. E . W. Bastard, who was the chief bowler in the Somerset eleven before the county became first- class, died at Taunton at the age of 39. He played against Cambridge in 1883, 1884 and 1885. After he retired from county cricket he frequently played for the Gentlemen of Somerset. A t the annual meeting of the Berkshire County C.C. the chairman, Mr. C. E. Keyser, stated that, unless more help was received, it would be impossible for the county club to be carried on much longer. The balance due to the bankers was now £940. A t present the subscrip­ tions amount to between £500 and £600 a year, and he hoped that this sum would be increased. The unfortunate position of the county, from a financial point of view, was partly due to a series of diffi­ culties which have been too great to overcome, and partly to the want of interest taken in the club by the inhabi­ tants of Reading. A n amusing account of a race between a cricketer and a croquet player appears in River Plate Sport and Pastime. The follow ing refers to the preliminaries :— About seven o’clock on Saturday night, by the light of the moon, there was a most interesting sporting match brought off at Hurlingham. At “ cocktail time ” for some unknown reason a cricketer challenged a croquet player to run on foot once round the racecourse, which is a distance of little under 2,000 metres. The alacrity with which the latter snapped up the offer, which was for a small stake, made the anxious punters, who did not forget the fact that he was bom in Scotland, willing to lay a shade of odds on “ croquet.” A ll preliminaries having been duly arranged, the competitors sallied forth to the racecourse and began to divest them­ selves of sundry articles of wearing apparel, the “ canny Scot ” keeping his eagle eye on the cricketer meanwhile in the semi-darkness to see that he did not carry a bracer more than his opponent. T h e race itself is described as follows : The story of the race is short—the com­ petitors disappeared into the darkness, and the wagering and discussion as to the merits of the partisans became brisk—it was gener­ ally agreed that croquet was in better con­ dition, but it was known that the cricketer was a rare sticker, and a demon for pluck, so that honours were considered to be fairly easy. After waiting some ten minutes the spectators began to get anxious, and a “ relief expedition ” was formed to look for the contestants. Just as this was about to start there was a shout from one of the scouts and a white shirt was seen rolling up the course, and low and behold it was “ croquet ” trotting as gaily as a two-year old ! How­ ever, there was work yet for the expedition,