Cricket 1903

42 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. M ar . 26, 1903. matches in first-class cricket, they sug­ gest that play shall commence at 11.30 on the first day of a match and at 11 o’clock on the second and third days. Also that there shall be no tea interval, that the umpires be instructed to insist upon there being no waste of time between the fall of a wicket ar.d the arrival of the next batsman, and that the utmost punctuality be observed in every way. A t the annual meeting of the Warwick­ shire County C.C. it was stated that the cricketers of the county have so gener­ ously responded to the appeal of the committee for funds that the club had now a balance in hand of over £3,000, which is more than sufficient to wipe off the debt. It was also stated that the railway companies had agreed to allow visitors to the county ground to travel at a fare and a quarter, return tickets, within a radius of thirty miles. It was decided to raise funds for a testimonial to Mr. W. Ansell, who has resigned the duties of honorary secretary; in his place Mr. H. W. Bainbridge was elected. M r . B ainbridge , as captain of the eleven, made a speech at the meeting, saying that he was in favour of reducing the size of the bat. He had seen it pro­ posed that matches should start earlier, and that the tea interval should be abolished. Personally, he was in direct opposition to the cutting out of the tea interval, for in his practical experiences he found that when a couple of men had been making a lot of runs, the rest was essential to the fielding side, and, as a matter of fact, this could be seen by the frequency with which a long partnership was dissolved directly after the tea interval. A certain Indian prince had been made responsible for the statement that people did not care whether a match was finished or not. He called this “ Banji’s heresy,” and said that, for his own part, he did not care for a game that was not finished. I t was announced at the annual meet­ ing of the Notts County C.C. that a sum of £177 14s. had been raised for the testimonial to Arthur Shrewsbury. The financial position of the club is fairly satisfactory after such a season as that of 1902, for income and expenses nearly balance each other. K ent also was able to rejoice over a satisfactory balance sheet at the annual meeting. Admiral Bice was elected president for the ensuing year in place of Lord Darnley. In the course of the meeting a resolution was unanimously carried as follows :— “ That the members of the Kent County Cricket Club, at their annual general meeting, desire to place on record their deep regret at the retire­ ment of Mr. J. B. Mason from the captaincy of the county eleven, and to express their high appreciation of his long and invaluable services to county cricket.” D uring the tour of the Oxford Univer­ sity Authentics in India nineteen matches were played, of which twelve were won, five drawn, and two lost. Hollins and Hornby each made over a thousand runs, the latter reaching the four figures in the last match of the tour. Simpson-Hay- ward and Williams both took just over a hundred wickets. At the annual meeting of the Derby­ shire County C.C. a sum of £10 was voted to George Hay’s benefit fund. The balance sheet showed that the club had now £400 to its credit. Sir Peter Walker was re-elected president. An illuminated address, together with a cheque for 50 guineas, was presented to Mr. P. C. Toone, the retiring secretary, at the annual meeting of the Leicester­ shire County C.C. It was stated that, despite the wet season, the receipts in 1902 exceeded the expenses by more than £200. Mr. Charles Marriott was elected president of the club. L otjis H all has been engaged by the Leicestershire County C.C. as coach and ground superintendent for the coming season. Gill, the Somersetshire profes­ sional, has applied for and received an engagement on the ground staff, and as Leicestershire is his county by birth, he will be able to play this season, as well as Y. F. S. Crawford, so that the team ought to be considerably stronger than last year. S ome of the members of the London County C.C. have practised on green matting during the winter in the long corridor at the Crystal Palace. In addition to the ordinary members, E. H. D. Sewell and B. Jayaram, the well-known Indian player, who is now in England on business, have had a turn at the nets. I t is stated that D. Beese, who made 111 against Lord Hawke’s Team for Canterbury (N.Z.), besides playing other good innings, is leaving the colony for Scotland, and may possibly remain there, or reside in England. T rumper seems to be attracting crowds in Australia in much the same way as Dr. Grace attracted them in England years ago. Thus the Sydney Referee says:— Between nine and ten thousand people put in an appearance at the Redfem Oval to see the Paddington v. Bedfern match. It is the largest attendance ever seen on the ground, and the attraction was largely—“ Trumper.” As a rule the caretaker of the ground has some little work to keep the small boy from climbing over the picket fence and depositing himself on the grass in the shade of the crowd, but in this instance he had practically nothing to do, for the small boy was unable to root his way through the spectators, deep and densely packed round the ground. The trees in the park were peopled, and the streets blocked with tradesmen’s carts, whose drivers wanted to see the hero of the hour operating. B anjitsinhji ’ s letter to the Times, which appeared just too late for notice in the last issue cf C ricket , may be said to sum up all the argun euts which have been used against the proposed widening of the wicket. He is, perhaps, most interesting when he leaves the subject. Thus, he says (a little ambiguously in the second sentence):— All but one of the drawn first-class games in which I took part last season were un­ finished thanks to had fielding on the part of one and often both sides in most games, and in the remaining one owing to the weather. I may add, by way of parenthesis, that for the last three years the average of easy catches dropped by one county team holding a high position in the championship during Whitsun week alone, at the lowest computa­ tion, cannot be less than 15. A gain , referring to bowling and good wickets, he says:— Of recent years, with tho exception of the last, there has been a long succession of dry summers. Consequently we have had more good and hard wickets than formerly; and bowlers in this country—with but few brilliant exceptions—who have gone in for length rather than for head work, have found them­ selves at sea. But it has had its good effect, inasmuch as it has taught them to realise by degrees—thanks especially to the magnificent examples set to them by nearly all the great Australian bowlers (who have visited this country during the last twelve years to my knowledge, and who are accustomed to bowl year after year on true pitches)—that some­ thing more than mere length is requisite to obtain wickets on good, dry, hard pitches. In some cases, in this country, I am happy to be able to say that the progress has been even more manifest, inasmuch as the Australian methods of bowling have been copied with success. Bowling on good wickets will train their brains, as it has already done in tho case of the Australian bowlers. P lating for Queen’s Begiment v. Gordon Highlanders at Peshawur on February 13, 14 and 15, Capt. G. H. Neale scored 267, which is a record for Indian cricket. Capt. Neale and E. H. D. Sewell are the only players who have twice exceeded the 200 in India, the former’s scores being 267 and 237, and the latter’s 246 and 225 not out. Q uite an exceptional bowling per­ formance was recorded on January 31st, in Sydney. Playing for Petersham Wyrallah against Glenroy C.C., T. Brown obtained ten wickets for one run (an overthrow). Eight were clean bowled, one caught, one leg before wicket. A l­ together he took sixteen wickets for ten runs, and did the hat trick in each innings. Petersham Wyrallah scored 23, and three for 64 ; Glenroy, 43 and 10. A notable piece of stonewalling oc­ curred in the match between Lord Hawke’s Team and X X II. of Westland in the match played at Greymouth on January 30th and 31st. B. Currie went in at the fall of the third wicket of the X X II., and carried out his bat for 31. He saw eighteen wickets fall. Y orkshire cricket is to have its historian, and not before he was wanted.