Cricket 1903

266 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. J uly 9, 1903, Limited, states that the net profit for the past year shows an increase of £29 Is. 8d., owing to the reduction on the amount of interest paid on the bank loan, and a slight increase in the rent of ground from the cricket club. The directors are pleased to record the fact that this year, owing to the generous offer made at the last annual meeting by one of the largest shareholders and the liberal response by other shareholders to the appeal made consequent on such offer, the whole of the necessary capital has now been sub­ scribed. The net profit for the j ear, as certified by tbe company’s auditors is £112 15s. 5d., and with £2 2s. 6d. brought forward from the last account, makes a sum of £114 17s. lid . available for distribution. S ome of the most extraordinary hitting of the season was seen during the partner­ ship of Bowley and H. K . Foster at Worcester in the Somerset match. They came together with the total at 98, and increased this by 250 while they were together in five minutes less than two hours. From 98 the score rose in 55 minutes to 200, and in another 35 min­ utes it had risen to 300. Foster’s first hundred took him an hour to make, bis second 50 half-an-hour, his third 50 18 minutes, and his fourth 50. In one over from North he hit five consecutive fours. T h e r e are only seven men who played in Gentlemen v. Players at Lord’s last year as well as this year. Their names are as follows:—Gentlemen : C. B. Fry, A. C. Maclaren, K. S. Ranjitsinbji and E. M. Dowson. Players: Tyldesley, Denton and Braund. O f the 20 men who played at Lord’s in this year’s Gentlemen v. Players’ match only seven represented England against Australia last year. They are: A. C. Maclaren, Tyldesley and Braund (five times), C. B. Fry and Ranjitsinhji (three times), Barnes and Hayward (once). A mong the well-known cricketers of various ages who were present at the Oxford and Cambridge match were the following : Lord Harris, Mr. V. E. Wal­ ker, the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, M .P., Sir T. C. O’Brien, Mr. A. G. Steel, K.C., Mr. P. M. Thornton, M .P., Mr. C. I. Thornton, Mr. K. J. Key, Mr. W. E. Denison, Mr. G. MacGregor, K. S. Ran­ jitsinhji, Mr. E. Dowson, Mr. B. J. T. Bosanquet, Mr. W. H. Patterson, Mr, W. W. Read, Mr. F. G. J. Ford, Mr. H. T. Hewett, Mr. W. Nicholson and Mr. H. D. G. Leveson-Gower. T h e total of 137 made by Cambridge against Oxford is the lowest in the series of University matches since Oxford were out in 1893 for 56. Cambridge have not made such a small score since their 97 in 1890, when Oxford could only put up 42 in their first innings. I n the match between Rugby School and Old Rugbeians there was a most interesting finish, for when stumps were drawn on the second day the ninth wicket of the boys had just fallen and only two runs were required to win. One would almost have thought that the prospect of a sporting finish would have induced the players to prolong the game for a few minutes. The scores were :—Old Rug­ beians, 270 and 188; The School, 220 and 236 for nine wickets. Q u it e a lot of men—as many as five— had scored over 1,000 runs by the end of last week, namely: Fry, Hayward, J. Gunn, Tyldesley and Hayes, while on Monday H. K. Foster, who only required 10 runs, made exactly 200 more, and was still not out. Denton stood at 914, but no one else had exceeded 900. A t h ir d of the 27 men who stood at the head of the batting averages on Mon­ day played in Gentlemen v. Players. This is quite a large proportion for a representative match. I n the same match the men with the best ibowling averages are not quite so wt 11 treated, for only six out of the first 44 find a place in either of the two teams, but this is quite the usual order of things. T h e Gentlemen of Philadelphia have a representative high up in the averages for batting as well as bowling. J. A. Lester stands 29th in the batting aver­ ages and will probably be higher before the end of the season, while in the bowl­ ing averages J. B. King is Bixth. A few other names are scattered about. “ ‘Where are you going to, my pretty maid ? ’ ‘ To the ’Varsity match, kind sir,’ she said. ‘ I ’m afraid it is over, my pretty maid.’ ‘Oh, that doesn’tmatter, kind sir,’ shesaid.” F rom the Sports Express (Hu ll):— Fred Smith, who has been playing for the past few weeks in the Yorkshire team, has severed his connection with the Nelson Club, in Lancashire. The Lancashire League contended that his participation in county cricket as a professional affected his league status as well, and being given seven days to decide between league and county cricket, Smith cut the Gordian knot by resigning his place in the Nelson team, and it is understood he will go hack to Harrogate, though it is said he has been permanently engaged hy the Yorkshire County Club on the understanding that he shall play no more football, and that he shall resign his position as one of the Bramley three-quarter backs. W ilk in so n , the Yorkshire professional who is in the Sheffield United football team, has also been asked to give up his football career, says our contemporary, while the fact of his playing for the Sheffield United cricket team against Hull a fortnight ago also gave rise to some annoyance in official circles, seeing that he had twice played for the County that week. But as his engagement had ceased on Friday night, there was surely no harm in his assisting in a club match, unless he be a bowler who is essential to tbe success of his county team. This is probably the reason why Ringrose did not assist Hull in this fixture, for the Anlaby Road pro. is played for his bowl­ ing pure and simple, and in this respect he has again done good work. U p to Tuesday no official reply had been sent from the Melbourne C.C. to the Marylebone C.C. in connection with the proposed visit of an English team to Australia this autumn. Under these cir­ cumstances the M.C.C. took the course of again cabling to the Australian authori­ ties asking for an early reply, but Mr. F. E. Lacey, the M.C.C. secretary, an­ nounced yesterday that since then a cablegram had been received from Aus­ tralia cordially inviting M.C.C. to send a team to the Colonies this autumn. Y e s t e r d a y morni; g the Daily Mail published the following cablegram from F. A. Iredale. Viewed in the light of Mr. Lacey’s announc ment above, this cablegram seems difficult to understand: S ydney , Tuesday, July 7. At a meeting of the Victorian Cricket Association held last evening a communication was read from the Mai ylebone Club asking their co-operation in inviting a team to tour in Australia. The Marylebone Club asked that the rule empowering the umpire at either end to no-ball the howler should be enforced, and informed the association that Phillips would accompany the team as umpire. The opinion of the association was adverse to the English team bringing out their own umpire, and it was decided to inform the Marylebone Club that, in view of the letter which Phillips had recently written to the Victorian Association questioning the fairness of Saunders’ deliveries, they strongly objected to him coming out as umpire. It was also decided to inform the Maryle­ bone Club that the new rule passed by that body, giving the side which hats first and leads by 150 runs, the option of requiring the other side to follow their innings, is hardly applicable to Australian matches, which are played to a finish. F. A. I redale . W it h reference to the remark by Ire­ dale that the follow on rule is hardly applicable to Australian matches, which are played to a finish, most cricketers know that in the big matches in Australia the side which goes in first also goes in third whatever the state of the game. This is not one of the instances where there is a slight difference between the laws as used in Australia and those of the M.C.C., for laws 53 and 54 of the M.C.C. only refer to three-day and two-day matches—not to four or five or six-day matches. T h e Sporting News and Axemen’s Journal (Tasmania) gives some particu­ lars of A. W. Tattersall, who is the first batsman on the north-west coast of Tasmania to score a thousand runs during a season. Last season he made 1,040 runs in twenty completed innings. His highest score was 109 not out. This was in a first wicket partnership with B. Stuart, who made 128 not out, the total being 250 in a couple of hours, a record for the coast.