Cricket 1902

M a t 15, 1&02. CRICKET : A. WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 137 In a letter to the Sydney Referee, Mr. L. O. S. Poidevin, who is now in England, said:— Our boat reached Fremantle about 9 a.m. on Monday, and the cricketers were not long in going ashore. Most of the team caught the first train for Perth, where they were met and welcomed by the local British Association Football representatives. This would seem rather a novel proceeding if unexplained that the English cricket team and a representative West Australian team were to meet in what the local papers termed the first great International British Asso­ ciation Football contest ever played in Aus­ tralia. Elaborate preparations were made for the match, special trains running from Perth to Fremantle, where it took place. . . . Great interest was evinced in the play, which went all in favor of the Englishmen, who eventually won by six goals to nil. Charlie M’ Gahey (an International player) captained the team, and besides him Quaife played a great game. Tom Hayward was very good at back, Jessop, Tyldesley and Jones all played very cleverly. Two of the last three appearances of Mr. F. S. Jacksonin first-class cricket havebeen remarkable. He went to the front in 1900 and was away all the summer until the Scarborough Festival when, invalided home, he scored 134 and 42 for Gentle­ men v. Players. He returned to South Africa, and came home in the early spring, playing bis first match of the Beason at Leyton, Yorkshire against Essex, and scoring 101 not out last Saturday. T he following story appears in a book entitled “ Savage Island,” describing life in New Zealand, by Mr. Basil Thomson :— Returning from a walk late in the after­ noon, we heard sounds of merry-making in the village square, and found the whole population sitting convulsed with laughter at an entertainment provided by their visitors. It appeared that the shore party, returning to their boat, had discovered a band of urchins playing catch with oranges, and seized upon the opportunity for teaching the new British subjects the British national game. With sticksfor wickets, and cocoanut butts for bats, they soon had the game going, and when we came up a hoy of eight was bowling to a bearded engine-room artificer, who was going through the antics of clown-cricket to the huge delight of the onlookers. The little boys positively wept when the boat came to carry away their new-found friends. I t is stated that Mr. L. H. Gwynn will only be available for one week of the tour which is to be made in England by Lord Cadogan’s team of Irish cricketers. I t seems that C. J. Eady very consider­ ably increased his total of 419 not out, which was anAustralian record. For the match between Break o’ Day and Wel­ lington was not finished on March 22, although Tasmanian cricketers were under the impression that only three days was to be given to it. But the committee had originally decided that each side was to complete an innings, and accordingly Break o’ Day resumed batting on April 5th. It will be remembered that they had scored 652 for six wickets, Eady being not out 419, and Abbott not out 106. The innings closed for 911, of which Eady was responsible for no fewer than 566. He was out, stumped Burgess, bowled MacLeod. Thus his score stands second to the highest on record by A. E. J. Collins, atCliftrn, in June, 1899, for Clarke’s House v. North Town, viz., 628 not out. ------ “ In my opinion,” says “ Felix ” in the Australasian, “ bowling in England has retrograded a good deal in the last few years. This falling off has been of signal benefit to Australian batsmen, and has indeed been the potent factor in placing our men at the top of the tree. Ycuthful followers of the game to-day attribute the high averages gained by our batsmen in England to their intrinsic merit as cricketers pure and simple, without any reference to difference in class of bowling between the present and the past, but those who can go back for twenty years or more have no hesitation in stating that the chief cause of the high averages is the decline in the quality of English bowling, as compared with the best days of Lohmann. Peel, Briggs, Peate, Alfred Shaw, Emmett, Ulyett, Attewell, and others. There are far more cricketers in England now than at any previous time, but with respect to bowling no talent has come to the front deserving to be bracketed with the men I have mentioned, with the solitary exception of Wilfred Rhodes.” T he Australians were a good deal surprised, and, as becomes good sports­ men, not a little pleased, to find at Nottingham that A. O. Jones and Gunn were really fine batsmen. They had been so disappointing in Australia, that our visitors were naturally a little doubt­ ful whether the reports of their English form had been justified. Mr. Jones played beautiful cricket in both innings, and in his first innings Gunn was at his best; in his second innings he was some­ what at sea, and the ball did not always meet the bat in the middle. To a representative of the Press, Mr. W. Smith, who has played so well for the London County, has stated that he is qualifying for Gloucestershire. Last year he was fourth in the general battmg averages with 64*11. A f t e r bowling two overs and five balls in his first match for Lancashire this season (Lancashire v. M.O.C. at Lord’s), Barnes, the faBt bowler, who did so well with Mr. Maclaren’s team until he broke down, was obliged to leave the field, having again injured his knee. He was attended to by Dr. Wharton Hood, the famousspecialist, who stated thathe would be able to play again regularly. It is very greatly to be hoped that he will be able to do so, for England as well as Lancashire badly needs a good fast bowler. ------ D u r i s g the lively Mahommedan Mo- horrum festival, which has been so well described by Kipling in his story entitled “ On the City Wall,” a cricket match was played at Ootacamund between the Natives and the O.G.C.C. It was a some­ what remarkable match, the O.G.C.C. doing badly until the last two men, Captain Kelly 88, not out, and Davison, 51, put on over a hundred runs. The Natives scored 351 for five wickets (Ses- hachari 124, Yital Rao 78, and S. V. Chitty 66), against a total of 257. C o m m e n tin g on the recent disaster in the West Indies the St. James's Gazette says:— Sir Augustus Hemming, another of the men who look after this part of the Empire, has been for four years ' ‘ Captain-General and Govemor-in-Cbief of Jamaica.” It is not bis fault that Jamaica cannot pay its way. For twenty years he “ ran ” the West African Colonies from Downing Street, and nobody who knows him disputes his ability. There are those, rather, who believe that it is to him that England owes the acquiescence of Germany in our protectorate rights over the Niger territories. No man in the King’s service knows more about boundaries—he is as great an authority on international borders as he is on cricket, which is saying a great deal. For Sir Augustus Hemming, in spite of his sixty years, is an excellent cricketer, who has stood for hours at the stumps for the Gentlemen against the Players. The Sports Club is the child of his organising genius— along with the late Sir John Astley he founded it, and for years he was on the Com­ mittee of the M.C.C. The Governor of Jamaica has every right to be included among our flannelled rulers. W e do not know the source from which our contemporary derived the informa­ tion that Sir Augustus has stood for hours at the stumps for the Gentlemen against the Players, but it is certainly not from “ Wisden” or “ Lillywhite” or “ Gentlemen v. Players ” by Mr. Ashley- Cooper. Sir Augustus was in his earlier days a fine cricketer, and sometimes played for eighteens, etc., against the All England Eleven, but he never repre­ sented the Gentlemen. I t is somewhat remarkable that all the members of Maclaren’s team (except Hay­ ward who did so well in Australia), who have so far played against the Australians during the present tour have come off with the bat. Braund made 104, G. L. Jessop 47, A. O. Jones,45 and 19, and J. Gunn 80 and 30. T he veterans have been more than usually to the front this season. W. G. has made scores of 97, 61 and 61 not out. W. L. Murdoch 92, 50, 68, and 47. Abel 77,43, and 101. Arthur Shrewsbury 73and 69. W. Gunn 119. K. J. Key 120. R eferring to an up-country tour by a Melbourne cricket club, a correspondent of the Australasian says: “ We had a secret prize, for which two of our mem­ bers tied (Messrs. Robinson and Eding- ton), viz., for the player who made two ducks and two catches. It was decided in a way, the likes of which, I believe, never happened before, viz., a gully race in a gorge of about 50 yards. It simply astounded the country folk. Robinson won, Edington landing himself head first in a soft part of the gully.”