Cricket 1903

16 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. J an . 29, 1903. The widening of the wicket has provided food for discussion among Scottish cricketers during if o close season. The Grange are in favour of the increase in width, the M.C.C. of Scotland, considering that it would he in the interests of the game generally. Perthshire, the senior Scottish Club, also share this view, as do the great majority of cricketers North of the Tweed. Ih e widening of the stumps, however, will still further increase the diffi­ culties of Scottish batsmen, who are quite enough handicapped by climate and other causes. But drawn games, which are never satisfactory are as liable to occur in Scotland as elsewhere, especially when, as a well-known cricketer remarked to me lately, clubs persist as they so often do, in starting an hour late. Some Scotsmen think there might be different width of wickets to suit local requirements. But although I admit there is something in that suggestion, it would never do to draw distinctions. It is not the interests merely of one set of cricketers that have to be considered, but those of the majority. Hence the opinion stated. As we generally expected, J. D. Guise, of the Calcutta C.C., has been distinguishing himself against the Oxford Authentics. In the Bengal match Guise not only made top score in the first and the next best score in the second innings, but he came out with the best analysis and a very good one it was too —four for 33. Now that E. H. D. Sewell, the Essex player, has settled down in Eng­ land, J. D. Guise, who made l,000runsand took 100 wickets the year before last in Indian cricket, has strong claims to be con­ sidered the best all-round cricketer in India. He was educated at Merchiston, and after leaving that school became a distinguished playing member of the Grange C.C. The enthusiasm for county cricket is spreading, and Selkirkshire and Roxburgh­ shire are the latest additions to the county clubs. They will not, however, compete in the County Championship this season, but they hope to do so next year, especially if, as we all hope, the adjacent counties take part in the competition. To have or not to have a Mid-Lothian County Club is the question of the hour in cricket circles North of the Tweed. Since that is the case and as I think that the matter should be thoroughly thrashed out and care­ fully considered by all Scottish cricketers before the meeting on February Gth, so as to avoid, if possible, random and needless lalk on that day, I append some queries that should provide food for thought and dis­ cussion. I may say that I have been taken to task by some Scottish cricketers, who garb themselves in a cloak of apathy, for my remarks upon club cricket in my article on Scottish Cricket Reform in the November number. One phrase in particular seems to have stuck in their throats, viz , “ Over- indulgence in Club Cricket.” The queries I wish answered, and satisfactorily answered, are as follows : — (1) Why should we not have County cricket in Scotland ? (2) If Club cricket is, as some make out, the acme of perfection,” why is it that in the year 1900 the game in more than one part of Scotland was nearly dead ? (3) How was it that cricket improved so much last season in the counties com­ peting in the Championship, while in Edinburgh, where club cricket reigned supreme, the game was never in a poorer state, or the public interest at a lower ebb ? (4) If, as some persons think, there is little difference between county and club cricket in Scotland, how is it that the crowds are numbered by thousands at county matches— e.g., 21,000 at Perth, and 15,000 at Broughty Ferry— and by tens at club matches even in the Grange ground and elsewhere in Mid-Lothian ? (5) How was it that last season the cricket of Forfarshire, the county champions, was very different in quality from that played in id-Lothian ? In the former case it was cricket in the true sense of the word ; in the latter it was a game which cannot be otherwise designated than “ bat and ball.” (6) Was not one of the chief reasons for Scotland failing so badly against the Australians that the Scottish X I. (?) contained no fewer than seven Mid- Lothian players ? (7) Is it not time that the only men in the whole Scottish Eleven who were quite at their ease in playing the Aus­ tralian bowling, viz., Joe Anderson, W . R. Sharp, and A. Downs were men who were accustomed to playing with something at stake and before large crowds ? IM PRESSIONS OF IN D IA N CR ICKET . The following graphic impressions, by Mr. Cecil Headlam, one of the Authentic'', appeared in the Bombay Gazette : — The first and probably the most lasting impression that you get of cricket in India writes Mr. Headlam, is an impression of sun —dazzling, exhausting, baking, cooking, deceptive 6un. And it is not till you have seen it and played in it that you realise why it is that every team on tour, visiting India or Australia, plays always a little below par, twelve annas to the rupee. Some players, indeed, it suits, but they are not many. It is natural that this honest sun of yours should cause some modifications in the game. These, to the visitor, are striking. In the first place he has to get accustomed to playing in a topi, which he had always hitherto regarded as a solar myth. In the next place he finds that making runs, especially when he has to run them out, has become a feat not only of skill but also of endurance. On the other hand, the short hours go a long way to compensate the fieldsmen for the exhausting effects of the heat. Fielding from a quarter to three to five is endurable ; at the worst it is but two hours and a quarter of purgatory with a chance of Heaven and a certainty of tea. In first-class cricket at home in June it is another matter. You go out at the same hours with a practical certainty that you will remain out till seven, watching the ball at the utmost tension, and if you take ten minutes off for tea all the pavilion critics hold up their hands in horror and ask what England is coming to. They never did it, they say, in their day. But, of course, they never played cricket underthe same conditions. It is chiefly in the bowling that the modifi­ cation I have referred to is observable. A really fast bowler cannot “ live” in this Indian heat this Bombay cold weather! Bowlers whom we should regard as quite medium in pace at home one hears described as fast. Evidently the exhaustion of a long run is not to be courted ; the bowler tends to take a hop and a skip to the wicket and to send in a ball which may be tricky but is certainly not swift. Simpson-Hayward, for instance, has already seen fit to curtail his usual long run. The three features of first- class cricket at home, which are recent developments of the game, I see little sign of here. Compared with their opponents I fancy you will be struck by the amount of hooking and gliding to leg in which the best Authentic bats indulge. Out here you will see R. A. Williams make the ball perform astonishing flights in the air, highly puzzling to the unwary batsmen, when he has something like a British breeze to bowl against, and to-day, among the Hindus, I noticed that Mr. Narayen Rao made the ball go well with his arm, across the wicket, but noticed it, alas too late, and was caught at the wicket somewhere down by point. By-the-bye we were all much struck by Mr. Sheshachari’s wicket- keeping. Mr. Walcott was good for the Europeans, but I thought he snapped the ball too much, and his hands would probably suffer if he did very much of it. But that very fault makes a wicket-keeper very smart while he lasts. Mr. Sheshachari was equally quick and neat and took the ball well and close to the wicket. He does not seem to get down to the low ball and missed Hollins when he had got 90 as a consequence. But to take three chances out of four is good enough for any wicket-keeper, as the honest ones will admit! One thing which strikes me as to Indian cricket is the arrangement of the hours of play. To play cricket, to pay formal calls, to do your business, all during the hottest hours of the day seems an odd choice to the mere visitor, but it is no affair of his. Perhaps it is a custom dirived from the cricket you play in the monsoon. If so the monsoon has much to answer for. It is certainly responsible for one or two noticeable facts in Bombay cricket. The wet slow wickets which you then get, caking in the hot morning sun, have made your batsmen modify their game. In the match against the Europeans of the Presi­ dency it was curious to si e man after man come in and play the half-cock stroke to fairly fast bowling on a wicket which though not so tremendously fast as a Lord’s or Oval or Brighton ground, was, thanks to the great pains taken by the authorities of the Bombay Gymkhana, an admirably fast and easy one. Another opinion which I have formed so far, but subsequent events may cause me to change my view, is that the slow, caking wickets of the monsoon have given to the bowlers of tho Presidency a reputation somewhat above their deserts. Mr. Milne proved himself a useful tearaway bowler, and Mr. John (when the wicket was crumbling a little at the top end of the Bombay Gymkhana ground) got a lot of work on the ball and bowlod extremely well, but neither Mr. Baloo, who is however deceptive, nor Mr. Narayen Rao, though he mixes up his fast and slow ones well and swerves a bit, seemed to me to bowl quite up to the high reputations they have earned. Of the Hindu batting as of their fielding I have seen so far only the bad side. They had a disheartening day, under circumstances of a trying nature, especially to those not accustomed to playing together or in big matches. But one thing I may say with pride (for I have no part in it) and that is that the Authentic fielding is not put in the shade by that of our opponents, though one and all have found the dazzling glare of the sun strangely deceptive at first. And one thing also I may add with pleasure and that is that though some of us can bat pretty well and most of us know how to go for the ball, we shall none of us play a better innings, a pluckier, more brilliant or more enviable innings than that superb 204 of Captain Greig’s. Printed and Published for the Proprietor by M ib b itt & H a tc h ib , L td ., 167, 168, and 169, Upper Thames Street, London, E.C ., Jan. 29lh, 1903.