Cricket 1902

J u n e 26 , 1902. CRICKET : 1 WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 233 is termed, when he has played for Surrey, not only scored 71 not out and 60 against the county for the University at the Opal, but took 11 wickets in the match for 115 runs. E v e ry b od y was glad to find C. B. Fry in form once more in the match between Middlesex and Sussex. In his previous fifteen innings his highest score had been only 36, while in his last three innings he had scored 0, 1 and 0. There ws! nothing that a critic could find fault with in hh batting on Thursday last, and from all the signs of hesitation that he showed he might have been scoring hundreds in every game for weeks. Let us hope that having once found his feet again he will keep on his way without any more stumbling. Th ebe is a good deal Of similarity between what happened in the matches Yorkshire v. Warwickshire and Derby­ shire v. Australians. In each case the home team won the toss, without gaining much by it; the Australians with four wickets down headed the Derbyshire score by four runs when stumps were drawn on the first day, while at the same time the Yorkshiremen headed the War­ wickshire score by 62 runs with five wickets down; on the next day there was no play in either match; on Saturday the remaining Yorkshire and Australian wickets fell quickly; and finally on a ruined wicket the two home teams collapsed in their second innings. T h e re is an amusing caricature in Ally Sloper of Mr. G. Hillyard Swin- stead’s Academy picture. This is entitled “ All square and one to play,” and repre­ sents some golfers in the time of Eliza­ beth, apparently at Westward Ho. The caricature plays on the word “ square,” and makes the golfers as toy men made of square bricks. Some of the bowlers who went on as last change in the matches at the end of last week met with astonishing success. A few of their records are given below :— O. M. R.W. H ow ell........................... 6 3 8 4 Haiffh i 19 3 < < 8 6 a a g“ .......................... j 15 5 18 5 Gill ........................... 24 6 15 7 Bird ........................... 16 5 33 4 Jephson ....................118 1 29 5 F o r the Knickerbocker Athletic Club (New York) against the Nelson Lodge C.C. on June 7th at Bayonne, New Jersey, F. F. Kelly took four wickets with successive balls. This is the second time that he has performed the feat, the first being in 1899 against Haverford College. O n ly two innings of over a hundred have been played in New York this season, viz. : F. J. Prendergast for Man­ hattan Club v. King’s County on May 30th at Brooklyn, 124, and A. G. Lawrie for Knickerbocker Athletic Club at Bayonne on June 7th, 103 not out. Though play could not be begun on the second day till half-past three o’clock in the afternoon owing to rain, the match between Cambridge University and Surrey at the Oval at the end of last week was full of interest from start to finish. If the Surrey batsmen were hardly up to their best form, the batting was noteworthy if only for the fact that not one wicket was clean bowled in the two innings. Abel was bowled off his pads by E. F. Penn in the second, but that was the only time the Cambridge bowlers hit the sticks in the match. Surrey’s defeat was mainly the work of one of its own players, E. M. Dowson, who made 121 for once out and took eleven wickets. Unless I am mis­ taken, this is the first time Cambridge University has beaten Surrey since 1892. The following additional instructions to umpires have been recently issued by the M.C.C. Committee : (a ) Umpires are not justified in deciding the ground unfit for play merely because the grass is wet, and the ball would, in consequence, be slippery; (b) In order to facilitate play at the earliest possible moment in wet weather, the umpires shall see that the foot-holes made by the bowlers and bats­ men are cleaned out, dried, and filled up with sawdust at any time during the match, though the game is not actually in progress. T itchm arsh and Walter Wright, who stood in the match between Surrey and Cambridge University, took the very earliest opportunity of carrying out the latter part of these instructions. That the new departure proved a success at the Oval, at the end of last week, goes without saying. W ith regard to section a of the instructions there can be no doubt that of late years umpires (and to a certain extent captains, since they have had the option of deciding whether the game shall be resumed) have shown a tendency to waiting very much longer than was the custom years ago before advising a recommencement of the game. Older cricketers can remember that they often went out into the field immediately after a heavy shower, when the grass was so wet that the covers of the ball became a mere mass of pulp in about an hour, and “ slithered ” through the wet grass to the boundary at a fear­ some rate. Section b is clearly an altera­ tion in the laws, instead of being a mere instruction. ------ “ W e have three more or less cherished institutions says the St. James’s Gazette which are proverbially uncertain with an even •glorious uncertainty.’ They are (not counting our women, who we presume are not less “ variable always ” than the Roman dames of old) our law, our cricket, and our weather. Just this week we care very little for either the first two, but the last is a matter of supreme importance.” But what about the return Yorkshire match against the Australians P J. E. R ap h a el, the English Rugby threequarter, attained bis double first for Oxford last week, when he was one of the winning team in the Inter- University Water Polo Match at the Bath Club. His consistently high scoring last summer for Merchant Taylors was one of quite the most notable incidents of the Public School cricket season, as will be generally remembered. He also made such a prominent debut in first-class cricket for the London County C.C. as to lead to the belief that he would get his cricket blue as a Freshman this summer. Unfortunately, he was quite out of luck in the early part of this season at Oxford, and has never been able to get into anything like form. Still, the talent is there, and only wants a fair chance to show itself. As a schoolboy he was of infinite variety as an athlete. T h e annual general meeting of the Cricketers’ Fund Friendly Society will be beid at Lord’s Hotel, St. John’s Wood, on Monday, July 7th, at 7.30 for 8 p.m. The President, Mr. W. E. Denison, will preside. How is this for a coincidence ? Surrey v. Cambridge University, Oval, first day, June 19th, Cambridge 204, Surrey 98 (for seven wickets).—Total 302. Surrey v. Oxford University, Oval, first day, June 23rd, Oxford University 206, Surrey 96 (for one wicket).—Total 302. In a letter which a reverend gentleman sends us, on the subject of Yorkshire’s defeat last week, the following remark occurs—“ Poor Yorkshire ! I knew they would go under when the Somerset in.” Mr. L. C. H. P a la ir e t kept wicket for Somersetshire against Worcestershire, at Worcester, last week-end. A curio ! On the first day of the Essex v. Lancashire match at Leyton last year, Essex made 333, the last man out beiog T. Russell, leg-before-wicket. On the first day of this year’s match between the two sides on thesame ground, Essex again made 333, and again T. Russell was the last man out, leg-before- wicket. G. L. Jessop scored 222 not out for South Nutfield v. Holmsdale, at South Nutfield, on Saturday last. He made 162 in an hour. Th e statisticians have been most annoy­ ingly reticent in doing justice to the small score made by the Marlborough eleven in the first innings of their annual match against Cheltenham at Cheltenham last week. I should be inclined to think that there are few, if any, instances of a school eleven being dismissed for under 20 in a first-class inter-school match. J. P. Winterbotham, who took eight Marlborough wickets on this occasion, surpassed this performance in the same match last year, when he was credited with thirteen wickets at a cost of 114 runs.