Cricket 1903

26 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. F eb . 26, 1903. T h e Dublin cricket public is t o have Ihe opportunity of saeing our own W. G. at the head of the London County C.C. Eleven next summer. From information received, I judge that the match will be against Dublin University. It is to be played on June 11th and two following days. T h e list Australian tour, if primarily a triumph for Trumper and Tramble, was productive of several other interesting developments. Of these none was per­ haps more notable than the c insistent au l steidily increising sucaass of R. A. Duff, Trunper’s partnar, in opening the bitting. Since his return to Australia, it may fairly be said of hi n that ha could do nothing wrong. A referenaa to his scores, 66, 40, 94, 18, 103, 65 and 132, will show this. In the course of the recant return m itc i between Nesv South Wales and South Australia, he completed his thousand runs in m itches for the Sheffield Shield. Altogether his record s'lows 1,033 as the result of twenty-two innings. Of these ten are against Vic­ toria, and twelve against South Australia. His avarages, so far, is jiist unier forty- seven per innings. T h e abandonment of the contemplated visit of Fijian cricketers to England this year, will cause a certain amount of inconvenience to the County Clubs, on whose behalf fixtures had been made, and on whose cards they have been printed. Moreover, Mr. O. R. Borradaile had made such excellent arrangements for them as to emphasise the feeling of regret that his labours have baen wasted. As at present the only intimation of the withdrawal his been in the brief cable­ gram received a few days ago, judg­ ment must be deferred on the action of the responsible parties on the other side. I t is satisfactory to learn, on the best authority, that Lord H iwke’s team, at present in New Zealand, will, after all, not return home without visiting New South Wales and Victoria. News is just to-hand that Mr. P. F. Warner has accepted the invitation of the Melbourne C.C. to play matches in Melbourne and Sydney on their way back. They are to leave New Zealand on March 6, taking with them Albert Trott to assist them in their Australian fixtures. The matches will be against Victoria and New South Wales, commencing on March 13 and 20 respectively, and will probably be limited to three days in each case. The team are to leave Brisbane on their homeward journey on March 26. T h e message that Mr. Macliren sent to Major Wardill, the secretary of the Melbourne C.C., intimating that he had decided to defer the contemplated visit of another English team to Australia at the end of this year, for twelve months, does not seem to have given entire satis­ faction on the other side. At the time the last Australian mail left, which was in the middle of January, the only com­ munication Major Wardill had received was a cablegram, “ Postponed Septem­ ber next year, writing.” The Major declares his inability to understand the only reason given for the postponement so far given in the English Pre3S from Mr. Maclaren that the men will have had a thorough rest. T h a n k s to a few extraneous contribu­ tions in the shape of a grant of one hundred pounds out of the proceeds of the Dan Leno Charity Match and a still more valuable contribution of three hundred pounds, the receipts of the sale of bats, originated by “ Spedex ” of the Daily Express, the Cricke‘ers’ Fund Friendly Society, with £57 8s., proceeds of a smoking concert given by A. W. Gamige, Ltd., has a more than usually satisfactory balance sheet, as the result of list yeir’s working. The net surplus indeed was £-517 13s. 5d., a sum con­ siderably in excess of any previous record. That the Fund cirries out its mission as a Friendly Society fully, is shown by the fact that it paid £84 in superannuation allowances, £281 16s. 51. in sick allowances to Members. Death allowances accounted f or £45, paid on the deaths of George Anderson, W. Clarke, and G. Davenport. J u s t now, when the question of un­ finished games and the best means for bringing them to a definite conclusion is severely before the public eye, the opinion of an old parliamentary hand like F. E. Allan—“ the bowler of a century ” —who came over with the first Australian team in 1878 will not be without interest. They refer to cricket in Melbourne, I may add in parenthesis, and were contained in a letter to the Melbourne Argus com­ plaining of the slowness and the waste of time so injurious to the welfare of the game:— Here is his remedy: ‘ ‘ On the stroke of 12 the umpires, team, and batsinen should go out of the gate. Let the game proceed with life and minus those petty delays I have enumer­ ated. Let the ingoing batsman pass his comrade at the gate. If we have to have that abomination, the sight-hoard, let there be men specially to move it when required, instead of a fieldsman having to go to it and return to his place; and, as regards the delay that nearly always occurs when a 4 is hit, let there be several lads placed at intervals inside the fence to throw the ball up. They would not interfere with the fieldsmen in the slightest, and would save a great deal of time in the course of the game. I make all these suggestions in the interest of the best of games and a long-suifering public. I remem­ ber when the first Australian Eleven went home in 1878, the game was being played in exactly the same lethargic spirit as now obtains here. Unpunctuality and listlessness were its prominent features. W e noticed this, and determined, as far as we were con­ cerned, to alter it. On the stroke of 12 we went out of the gate (frequently before the umpires). We were punctual and brisk in every other way. The public were delighted. The Press referred to us as ‘ those punctual Australians.’ Our actions put our opponents on their mettle, and we had real ‘ live’ matches, and made quite a revolution in the game.” T h e new county ground for Dorset­ shire, which is at Poole, is to be opened next June. The exact date has yet to be fixed, though the match has been settled. To do the occasion proper honour, the Marylebone Club will send an eleven of the Club and Ground. T h a t an Australian record for the first wicket should belong to Victor Trumper aud R. A. Duff, is quite in the eternal fitness of things. Their 298 for New South Wales against South Australia in the match reported “ in another place,” is the largest number of runs made by the two batsmen opening an innings in a first-class match in Australia. Had Trumper, who made 178, got 22 more, he would have claimed to have scored two hundred in an innings against all the five States or Colonies, that is to say, against Victoria, South Australia, Tas­ mania, Queensland, and New Zealand. T h e presentation to be made to Mr. J. B. Wostinholm, who has just given up the Secretaryship of the Yorkshire County C.C., after practically a life’s devotion to its service, is, it has been announced, to take place on Friday, the 3rd of April, at Sheffield. To Associa­ tion footballers Mr. Wostinholm has also been a guide, philosopher and friend, by virtue of his official connection, not only with Bramall Lane, but as for some time the Secretary of the Sheffield United F.C. Though it is pleasant to think that he will even now still remain in direct touch with the county eleven, his retire­ ment will be a distinct, as well as severe, loss, cot only to Sheffield sport, but to sport throughout the country. T h e last wicket partnership of 216 by M. Ellis and T. Hastings for Victoiia against South Australia, is not only an easy best for first class cricket by Aus­ tralians, but is only nineteen runs behind the record in all first-class matches, 230 by R. W. Nicholls and Roche for Middle­ sex v. Kent at Lord’s in 1899. The per­ formance, too, was interesting in other respects. The Sydney Referee, indeed, claims another record for first-class cricket anywhere, in that Hastings’ 108 not out is the highest score made by a batsman who has gone in eleventh in first-class cricket. Anyway, Ellis’ 118 not out, is particularly noteworthy, from the fact that it was the first appearance in Sheffield Shield matches, in other words in first class cricket in Australia. His success was the more notable as he was not in the original eleven, and only got into it because J. V. Saunders could not play. T h e mantle of A. H. Jarvis, the great wicket-keeper and all-round cricketer of the middle eighties and early nineties, is not unlikely, it would seem, to fall on his son, H. J. The youngster repre­ sented the Juniors of Adelaide against the Juniors of Melbourne early last month, and with no inconsiderable credit. Besides taking wickets he made fourteen runs in promising form.