Cricket 1903

S ept . 17, 1903. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 429 is, and that the time must come sooner or later when he bears out the remarkable promise shown by himduring hisboyhood. It was not a great year for the famous Doctor, although he did by no means badly; his fine innings of 150 against Gloucestershire showed well enough of what he is still capable. Braund has played consistently well, without being as prominently before the public as usual. For a time L. G. Wright’s suc­ cession of fine innings for Derbyshire were the theme of admiration of all cricketers, for his runs were nearly always made when his companions failed. E. M. Sprot, Bowley, Killick, J. H. King (Leicestershire), A. H. Hornby, Holland, and Relf well deserve their positions in the average list by the excellence of their play, but Albert Trott, Storer, E. W. Dilion, C. E. de Trafford, and A. E. Lawton have all had a more or less dis­ appointing season such as is bound to happen to nearly every batsmen occasion­ ally. Sewell gave very great promise, but fell off after the middle of the year; he will probably come a great deal more to the front next season. No one has been more disappointing than V. F. S. Crawford. It was thought that, with his place assured, he would be one of the most notable men of the year, but his time has not yet come. Certain of the members of the Gentle­ men of Philadelphia team must not be passed over. In Lester and J. B. King the Americans had two batsmen who would not have been left out by any county if they had been available, for they both possessed the grit which is so necessary in a great batsman, as well as a very great deal of skill ; above all, they had “ class.” King, who is also a fine bowler, would be worth his place in an England team if he were a native. These two men and Bohlen were almost a class above the other batsmen in the team, but in their several ways Graves, Morris and Sharpless were fine cricketers. On the whole the batting strikes one as having bean better than the bowling, but the season has been particularly notable for the number of men who have distinguished themselves in both branches of the game. Among them may be men­ tioned Hirst, Braund, Arnold, J. Gunn and Rhodes (who have all taken ahundred wickets and scored a thousand runs), J. B. King (the American), Alec Hearne, Relf, Lees, G. W. Beldam, C. M. Wells, and B. J. T. Bosanquet. No startling new strokes have been invented, and for the most part men have been constrained to leave fancy strokes severely alone, although some have persisted in trying to make them, with unfortunate results to themselves. “ Leg p la y ” has not been nearly as conspicuous as usual, since with the ball doing curious things, it was not very easy to calculate with exact­ ness just what it was going to do, and it was safer to bring the bat against it. The chief thing which is to be noted with regard to the bowling of the year is perhaps not so much the great success of Rhodes and Hirst and Blythe as the appearance on the scene of some new bowlers of great promise. But it must not be forgotten that bowlers’ wickets have been the rule rather than the excep­ tion, and that many men who have done wonderfully well would not have been heard of at all in an ordinary season. Two new bowlers stand out very promi­ nently, viz., Langford and Dennett. It would have been more satisfactory to English cricket if these bowlers had belonged to counties which are already strong in bowling, for then they would have had a really excellent chance of coming to the front. As it is, Langford plays for Hampshire, and Dennett for Gloucestershire, two teams which have so little bowling that new comers, if they are good, are bound to be overworked, and to receive so little support that, unless they are altogether out of the common, they can never very greatly distinguish themselves. Even a Rhodes or a Trumble would have without doubt become commonplace in course of time if it had been their lot to play for a county which was weak in bowling. Experience has shown conclusively that, if a famous bowler ceases to play for a team which is strong in bowling, he gradually loses his skill about nine times out of ten. It is quite natural that this should be the case, for with a strong team it very seldom indeed happens that a man has to keep on until he is discour­ aged, whereas in a weak team it must often be his lot to wish that he had never been born. Whether Langford and Dannett will rise superior to circumstances remains to be seen. Their rapidly gained reputations have been made on sticky wickets, and it is more than likely that in a dry season they would be ineffective. In the first half of the season Buckenham came with a great rush and almost created a sensation. He was interviewed frequently and his opinions on the art of bowling were eagerly sought for. But in the midst of his great success he suddenly seemed to fall off and was no more heard of. Other professionals of whom a bril­ liant future was prophesied were Jackson and Montgomery, the young Surrey bowlers who did so well in the first few matches of the season. But they both vanished from the scene altogether after a few matches, although they are fairly high up in the season’s averages. Ring­ rose, who bowled so well for Yorkshire for a time, also disappeared; he heads the averages for the season. Of the bowlers with reputations, Rhodes and Hirst have undoubtedly been the most talked about, but one has an uneasy suspicion that on hard wickets neither of them is as good as he was, and that if the season had been normal their reputation would have suffered. Mead, who in match after match had hardly anybody to back him up, can point to an astonish­ ingly good year, and there are still many good players who think that he would be a most useful man to take to Australia. The American bowlers, J. B. Kin g and P. H. Clark, very greatly distinguished themselves ; without doubt they would both play for the Gentlemen if they were Englishmen. The slow wickets have been a godsend to Blythe — one of the best slow wicket bowlers in the world—J. T. Hearne and Hargreave, who have all done very well indeed, while Roberts, the Gloucestershire veteran, whose days seemed quite over, has come to the front again in a very marked manner. On his day Barnes was perhaps the most difficult bowler of the season, but like Martin Macintyre of old. he has his off days, when he does not seem himself at all. But provided that their side has other good men to fall back upon, bowlers of this kind are probably the most serviceable of all, for they will win half-a-dozen matches in a season. Arnold, Relf, Alec Hearne, Haigh and J. Gunn have well sustained their reputations, while W. H. B. Evans and H. C. McDonell have shown great promise. It is sad to be obliged to chronicle a great falling off in Trott, Lockwood and Tate, but of these Lock­ wood is never seen at his best unless he can get a very firm foothold. On the few really perfect wickets of the season big scares have been made, which in itself is not an encouraging sign as regards English bowling, for batsmen very seldom can time the ball on a fast wicket immediately after they have been playing on slow ones. The fact remains that at the present time we have no Mold or Richardson (the Richardson of old), no^Lohmann, no Alfred Shaw or Attewell. If proof were needed that it is the con­ stant running about on hard grounds for so many hours at a time in a succession of matches which is the chief cause of bad fielding, it would be sufficient to point to numerous references during the year to the improvement in the fielding even of notoriously bad fielding teams. For the greater part of the year grounds have been soft, aud large totals conspicu­ ous by their absence, so that men have come to their work morning after morning without feeling fagged out. It is one thing to expect men to field well when they are fresh; it is another to expect them to do so when they have lost the toss three or four times in succession, and fielded on baked ground to as many in­ nings of about five hundred runs. This year fieldsmen have had a chance to distinguish themselves, and although there have been notable exceptions, as a rule they have taken advantage of their opportunity. Wicketkeeping is just now at a very high level. Martyn has the reputation of being actually the best wicket-keeper in England, but Strudwick has come on wonderfully, and runs him close; unfor­ tunately he does not seem to show any signs of becoming a good batsman, although once or twice during the season he has made a useful stand. But with such men as Lilley, Butt, Huish, Findlay, Humphries, Macgregor, Hunter, Board, and Newton England has no reason to complain of a dearth of wicket-keepers. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. G. W . C abvbr . - N o . He need not. See last para­ graph of interview on August 27 th with 0 J Foathuma (a left-handed bowler).