Cricket 1903

A u g . 27, 1903. CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 377 G. L. J is s o p did a fine performance on Friday for his own eleven against Wilt­ shire at Hardenhuish Park. He scored 62 in fifty-five minutes out of 102 for eight wickets, his innings including four hits for 6 and six 4’s. The only other double figure on his side was 12. O f George Hirst, whose cartoon ap­ peared last week, Vanity Fair says :— Although he is only two-and-thirty, it is not too much to say that he is the best all­ round cricketer of this English generation. Born at Kirkheaton, near Huddersfield, he is a Yorkahireiran to the backbone; and for Yorkshire he has played cricket since 1889, having scored a thousand runs or more, and having taken a hundred wickets in four separate seasons. Though he is not so good a sailor as he is a cricketer, he is ready to risk the voyage to Australia whenever he is wanted there; for he is full of grit. If he is not a great linguist, he is at least a com­ plete master of the West Riding dialect, who has played for England no fewer than ten times. He bowls with a noted “ swerve,” he bats with a daring “ pull,” he fields with all the virtues, and he will ever he remembered as the hero of the England v. Australia match at the Oval last year. His coming benefit should be a well-deserved record ; and he may be summed up a really fine fellow, with the heart of a lion. He has a very good appetite and quite a nice smile. A MORE exciting finish to a match could hardly be wished for than that between Oxfordshire and Bedfordshire on Saturday at Oxford. The former had to make 88 to win on a difficult wicket, and when the last man went in six runs were still required. When three of them had been obtained one of the batsmen played the ball on to bis wicket, and Bedfordshire thus won by three runs. B a tt in g averages this year have suf­ fered greatly, but C. B . Fry has had a really remarkable season, so remarkable that one wonders what he might have done if only the weather had been fine. On Monday his aggregate stood at 2,359, and his average at 81'34. No one else had scored two thousand runs, but Hay­ ward was at 1,926. But whereas Fry had only played in thirty-five innings (six times not out) Hayward had played in fifty-four (three times not out), so that his average was only 37'76. In all probability Hayward will reach the second thousand before the season closes, but no one else seems to have much chance of doing so unless the weather changes very considerably. R hodes is still slowly bringing his aggregate nearer to a thousand, and yes­ terday he was at 924, so that before the end of the season he will most likely join Hirst, J. Gunn, Arnold, and Braund with a record of a thousand runs and a hundred wickets. L ast week Yorkshire, in their desperate fight for the championship, went through two experiences which form a great cricket curiosity. On the Wednesday afternoon they declared in the most plucky manner, leaving Essex to make 86 runs, and their bowlers met with such success that in thirty-five minutes they had disposed of six men. Then the Essex tail came to the rescue of their side, and when time was up there were still two wickets to fall. The Yorkshiremen might have been excused if they had called the saints to witness that never had a county experienced such wretched luck since the championship was instituted. So far for the first match. O n Saturday the positions were almost exactly reversed, and Yorkshire had to struggle for life like their oppo­ nents of the previous match. At Can­ terbury Kent declared, leaving York­ shire an hour and three quarters to bat. The wickets fell with such alarming rapidity that when half an hour had gone, and there still remained an hour and a quarter, half the side were out for 16—though runs were a matter of no importance whatever. In this desperate position Rhodes and Wilkinson “ stone­ walled” with determination, and minute by minute Kent saw their chances of victory slipping away, until at last Yorkshire, like Essex on the Wednesday, escaped with two wickets in hand. One would think that such a week’ s record must be unique. A lth o u g h Hirst on Monday again headed the bowling averages which appeared in the daily papers, three men, whose names did not appear in the list, because they have not bowled with sufficient frequency, were above them. These are H. A. Arkwright, 9 for 87, average 9 66; Langford, the new Hamp­ shire bowler, 28 for 279, average 9'96; and Coleman, 10 for 125, average 12 50. Hirst’s average was 12'74. S pectators at cricket matches are sometimes very difficult to please, and on Saturday, when Fry and Ranjitsinhji were playing absolutely perfect cricket on a bowler’s wicket, they ironically cheered every hit, and “ barracked ” in somewhat gentle style. Yet the two famous batsmen came together at a moment when a failure by either of them might have had serious results, and with runs of no importance at all, defended their wickets with the utmost skill. Again, at Canterbury, when five York­ shire wickets had fallen for 16 and there still remained an hour and a- quarter for play on a terrible wicket, the spectators jeered at Rhodes and Wilkinson because they only played for safety at such a time. F or the match at Lord’s next Monday between cricket-golfers and golf-crick- eters the sides have now been chosen. The golf-cricketers will be captained by Mr. G. W. Beldam, Middlesex and Mid- Surrey Golf Club, and will consist of those who play cricket but whose chief game is golf. His team will be : Mr. H. G. Hutchinson (the amateur ex-champion of golf), Mr. H. H. Hilton (open and amateur ex-champion), Lieut. C. K. Hutchison (the young North Berwick player), Mr. John Graham, jun. (of Hoy- lake), Mr. H. W. de Ziete (of Royal St. George’s), the Hon. Osmund Scott (of Westward H o !), James Braid (open champion of 1901), J. H. Taylor (cham­ pion of 1894, 1895 and 1900), Alexander Herd (champion of 1902), and Jack White (of Sunningdale). The cricket- golfers, consisting of those who play golf, but who are best known as crick­ eters, will be : Mr. F. E. Lacey (captain), Mr. F. W. Maude, Lord Dalmeny, Mr. H. Sinith-Turberville, Rev. J. R. Ltigh, Mr. W. N. Roe, Mr. Cecil Headlam, Capt. W. O. Holloway, Mr. A. M. Miller, Lieut. A. E. Wood and Mr. A. P. Lucas. C h ie f l y for the benefit of foreign and colonial readers, and future cricket his­ torians, I have from time to time com­ mented on the miserable weather for which the past season has been noted. But as I do not profess to be a meteoro­ logist, I append the following extract from the Daily Telegraph. It appeared last week, and inches of rain have fallen since then. There is something so provocative of fiery and unconsidered speech in the present con­ dition of the weather that we approach so dangerous a subject with considerable hesita­ tion. Nevertheless, if we keep on the level of theory, there is a sort of grim satisfaction in the knowledge that we are establishing a record. Let us look dispassionately at a few scientific items. The wettest August known to modem man in these islands occurred in 1879. Well, we have already beaten that in the rainfall of August, 1903. The average total rainfall for the year in London is about twenty-six inches—let us say half-an-inch a week. But was has happened in the last four months ? Three inches and a half in May, six inches and three-quarters in June, five inches and a half in July, and three inches and a half up to the 20th of August— roughly speaking, nineteen inches for fifteen weeks ! We ought to have had seven and a half, and we have had nineteen inches, eleven inches and a half too much. I t would of course be interesting if a match could be arranged between the Rest of England and the M.C.C. team which is to go to Australia, and according to report such a match will take place at Lord’s on September 17th and following days. There are somany good men at home that the match would be very attractive. The Rest of England team, as suggested below, would not perhaps be the strongest available, but it is made out on the man-for- man principle, and it would be an entertaining puzzle to try to find how many men on either side are inferior to those on the other on public form. M.C.C. Team. Tyldesley Hayward Hirst Braund Knight Arnold P. F. Warner Relf Rhodes Lilies Fielder R kst of E ngland . C. B. Fry K. S. Kanjitsinhji F. 8. Jackson Alec Hearne A C. Maclaren J. Gunn L. C. H. Palairet C. M. Wells Blythe H. Martyn Lockwood