Cricket 1902

J u n e 19, 1902. CRICKET ; A. WEEKLY RECORD OP THE GAME. 217 printed the following words:— TEST MATCH. ENGLAND’S STARTLING COLLAPSE. As, long before the time that the paper appeared, Jackson and Maclaren had established themselves firmly, and only two other wickets had fallen, “ collapse ” was hardly the word which one would have expected to see. A REVEREND gentleman has written to a contemporary to complain that by allowing people to speculate at Lord’s on Friday last on the chance that their money would produce a dividend in the way of cricket, the M.C.C. committee were aiding and abetting the worst form of gambling. “ What,” he asks, “ is the difference between this, and putting money on a horse which doesn’t run ? ” But reverend gentlemen sometimes have out-of-the-way ideas. O n ly one match out of fix was brought to a conclusion on the last three days of last week, and in the big match at Lord’s there was only play for an hour and forty minutes, despite previous arrange­ ments for lengthening the time available for cricket. I f a change in the weather does not take place very soon indeed the balance sheets of the various counties at the beginning of next year will be heart­ rending documents. When there are only two or three hundred spectators instead of at least two or three thousand, in match after match, it is evident that the situation is becoming serious. The Australians must be great sufferers by the weather, and even if there is a good time coming, their tour can hardly be as profitable on the whole as that of the previous tour. As for the counties which never have a large gate their position must be becoming disastrous. P o lice constables, not content with getting their pictures into the Royal Academy, have been shewing that they can accomplish strange things at cricket. In a match between Accrington and Church Police, P. C. Eastham took six wickets with successive balls against twelve amateurs of Accrington. In all he took nine wickets for seven runs, out of a total of 14, of which ten were scored by the first batsman. B elow is given, in tabular form, the hours of play in the six matches at the end of last week:— First Second Third day. day. day. England v. Australia .. 1 h. 40 m. — — Kent v. Notts ................... I f h. 45 m. — Lancashire v. Somerset... — all day. 3h.* Surrey v. Gloucestershire 2 h. — — Derbyshire v. "Worcester. 55 m.nearly all 2j h. day. Hampshire v. Leicester. — —nearly all day. * Play began at ten minutes to three and Somerset had v on at ten minutes past six. T he list of bowling averages which appeared in last Monday’s papers is headed by the names of four Yorkshire- men, which must be about the very first time that a single county has been able to point to such a record, at any time since the averages were given weekly. The record is as follows:— Overs. Mdns. Runs. Wk*s. Aver. Jackson, F. S. ... P4-3 ... 31 ... 188 .. 26 ... 7'23 Haigh ................... 172-4 ... 59 ... 390 ... 42 ... 9'28 Hirst ................... 226-1 ... 91 ... 398 ... 39 ... 10'20 R h od es................... 811 3 ...104 ... 635 ... 57 ... 11-14 I n the battirg averages one has to search far down the list before coming to the names of the two men, Rmjitsinhji and Fry, who have been so prominent of late years. And yet their averages are anything but bad, for they had each over thirty on Monday—indeed, in days of old, such an average would have been considered good. Despite the wretched weather eight men, viz , Trumper, Shrewsbury, T. L. Taylor, Abel, A. C. Maclaren, W. L. Murdoch, Devey and Brockwell, have all averages of over 40. I t is curious that of the first fourteen men on the list of batting averages, only one, A. C. Maclaren, has played for England this year, while he and Tyldes­ ley are the only two Internationals in the first nineteen. Also that three men out of the first fiveEnglishmen, viz., Shrews­ bury, Abel and W. L. Murdoch, made their reputations years ago. The average list is certainly sometimes worth studying. A n o t h e r member of the Australian team is down with influenza, Jones having to remain in London as one of its victims instead of going to East­ bourne. Trumble was happily well enough to appear for the second time in the team, and shewed that his accident has not injured his bowling, by taking nine wickets in the first innings. V e r y happy are the quotations which are given below from the Daily Chronicle series of “ This is my Birthday ” :— “ THIS IS MY BIRTHDAY.” — SHAKESPEAltE. WILFRED RHODES, June 13, 1877. One of our conquerors.—Meredith. From Yorkshire come, and will come, the giants of the field.—Bernard Whelan. York thrives to heat.—Shakespeare. We will hear of "Wilfrid to-day or to­ morrow.—Meredith. Twist cunningly.—Dickens. And Twist has become a nuisance ; . . . . when he comes we go.—Dickens. I have heard men talk ofMr. Peel. —Praed. And welcome waterspouts.—Meredith. Ducks on the green. - Randolph Caldecott. A r e p r o d u c t io n of a photograph of C. J. Eady standing beneath the scoring board, on which the total of his recent big innings is shown, appears in the Sydney Referee. Eady looks as if he did not much like the operation of posing for the photograph. The numbers on the board are as follows :— 9 5 6 6 9 0 8 Some little time ago S. M. J. Woods made a short speech at a public dinner to the effect that Somerset was a county which is like a surprise packet—you never knew what would come out of it, and you were never disappointed, because you never expected anything. His team 1his year has certainly come up to his description of it. Ou the face of it the Middlesex match was regarded as lost, but Somerset won on the post, and now Lancashire, by only nine runs, and York­ shire by 34 runs, have fallen victims to the county of surprises. Th e death is announced, says the Tasmanian Mail, of Richard Barnes, well-known years ago as a leading cricketer in Hobart. Old cricketers will remember him as a member of the Wellington Club, and as a fast bowler in representative matches. After leaving Tasmania he played for East Melbourne, and when paying a visit to Adelaide with a Yictorian team he accepted an appoint­ ment there, playing in club cricket for some time. He died in Victoria. O n Monday there was even worse than the usual tale to tell, for out of eight first class matches, there was no play in five. And yet one hears of people returning from the Norfolk Broads after having enjoyed a delightful time ! One is always coming across new and interesting names of players in native teams in India, but Mr. Thirumaliah may claim to have gone one better than most of his countrymen. With such a name it was hard lines to make a duck’s egg for the Native X I. against Ootaca- mund Gymkhana. F r o m the Sydney M a il :— Never before have we been favoured with such details concerning the doings of the Australians at the nets as we have this year. Each day there have heen cables to say how the men were shaping to such an extent, that were it not for the fact that the messages were printed in large type, that they were headed “ Special Cables,” and that they appeared on the most important page, one would have imagined that the practice was taking place at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Some remarks by “ Felix,” the cricket critic of the Australasian, on the subject of the lack of quality of the bowling in Yictorian cricket just at the present moment, might well serve as a text for a homily to some of our young bowlers here :— At the Melbourne nets alone there are, on a brilliant summer evening, sometimes 100 players hard at it. Yet never once since Charlie Lawrence left have I seen any attempt made to coach a young bowler at the nets. Frequently they bowl less than the