Cricket 1904

M at 5, 1904. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 105 was caught at the wicket off a ball which he did not reach by at least a foot, and two other men were leg before wicket.” A f e w of the members of the M.C.C. Australian team made their first appear­ ance in first-class cricket last week in the match between London County and Surrey. Braund made 8 runs and took three wickets for 128, Knight made 22, and Strudwick, who kept wicket exceed­ ingly well, only allowing two byes in a total of 466, made 10 and not out 5. Tyldesley was playing for Lancashire against Eighteen of Lancjshire and Dis­ trict, and made 11 and 9. T h is week other members of the team made their appearance. Hirst scored 44 and 60, and took one wicket for 20. .Rhodes made 2 and 41, and took five wickets for 60. Hayward played for Surrey X I I . v. X V I I I . scoring 8. Of those who played last week, Strudwick made 15 this week for Surrey X II. v. X V III., and Knight 0. Warner, Foster, Bosanquet, Lilley, Relf,. and Arnold have not yet been seen this season in impor­ tant cricket. for about six weeks we have been up to our ears in hard work. To return to cricket. Yokohama and Kobe are great rivals, and each place only possesses its town club. The only matches which we get during the season are against any man of-war that may be up here, or occasionally against a P. and O. team. Otherwise games between picked-up sides take place on Saturdays. A great match is “ Born in Japan ” v. “ The Rest,” and “ The Borns” generally win both at cricket and football. In Cricket of September 17th last year you had an article headed “ Boundless Possibilities,” quoting Sir Edwin Arnold. I took the opportunity of sending it to the Japan Mail in order to try to bring it into prominence, and it was published in due course in that paper. But I’m afraid the Japanese are too keen on baseball ever to care about anything else, at any rate, unless they learn when away from their own country. We play both Rugby and Association here, and we beat Kobe at Rugby by six points to nothing, and drew at Association, neither side scoring. W r it in g to the Daily Chronicle, D . L . Jephson, the old Surrey captain, foresees trouble in connection with “ time­ limit ” matches. He says :— that he is a very dangerous batsman, who only wants to get going to be in the first flight. F r o m the Daily Chronicle :— A cricketing coster, who is a regular member of the crowd that daily watch the practice at the Oval, was heard maintaining the other day that “ that Cambridge bloke” was the best bowler of the Surrey lot. Apparently McDonell, the said “ Cambridge bloke, ” must have been telepathically inspired by his unknown admirer, for in the first two days’ match at Cambridge (Jesus College v. Crusaders) he took nine wickets in the first innings of the former, and five in the second, or fourteen wickets in all. T a l k i n g of the thousands of people who never take any physical exercise, says the Evening News, a contemporary instances the young louts who loaf about with their hands in their pockets or lounge on seats in the park. What we need are compulsory games. A football or cricket match, Park Pests v. London Larrikins, m ight be arranged in Hyde Park b y way of a start. I t is so seldom that a batsman wears spectacles in first-class cricket that the appearance in them of Abel at the Crys­ tal Palace is worthy of note. Other men who have worn them in recent years are H . Gray, the Cambridge University fast bowler, and Killick, the Sussex profes­ sional. In club cricket one often sees them worn, and although it has very occasionally happened that they have been broken by a rising ball, there has never been a serious accident from their use, as far as I know. A c o r r e s p o n d e n t writes :— “ A few weeks ago we were reading about Warner brushing the flies from his face while batting in Australia. I wonder what he would think if the visitors were mosqui­ toes instead of flies, as they are in the summer on grounds which are situated in the low -lyin g lands of Essex. Appar­ ently the members of local clubs are acclimatised to them, but it must be awful for visitors. Last Saturday I was watching a match in Wanstead Park, and in a few minutes I had to beat a retreat on account of the swarms of mosquitoes — and lady mosquitoes at that. But the players did not seem to mind them in the least.” T h e same correspondent adds: “ People complain often enough of the elow play in county cricket. What would they think if they saw the amazing things which happen in the parks ? Take an instance which occurred last week. The wicket was bad—shockingly bad—and ball after ball rose over the batsman’s head, being pitched a little short of half way. When the ball did not rise in this way the batsman missed it, and for over after over from both ends not a ball was touched by the bat, although frantic efforts were made to score. It must not be supposed that no wicket fell during this time, for two men were run out, one T he headquarters of the South African team will be the Grand Central H otel in Marylebone Road. During their last tour they stayed when in London at the Tavistock Hotel in Covent Garden. A t the annual meeting of the Gloucestershire County C.C. it was shewn that the gate receipts last year fell off by about £350. Only about £800 out of the £2,000 required has been received for the guarantee fund. It was suggested at the meeting that the subscription should be lowered to half a guinea, in order to obtain a large number of new members, but, beyond discussion, nothing was done in this matter. In the Daily Chronicle A. C. Maclaren writes about the suggestion which has been made to renew the matches Gentle­ men of England v. Australians, and Players of England v. Australians when the next team visits us. H e says :— ‘ ‘ With such an opinion I heartily concur, for not only are our supporters robbed of finer cricket than is seen when counties meet, but we are missing a good opportunity of accustoming promising players to a rather more trying ordeal, a Test match, to say nothing of finding out how a man acquits himself when playing outside his own county team. We ought to lose no opportunity, however slight, of doing our utmost for the good of our England side, and if we are to expect bigger crowds than formerly we must desist from serving up that one dish, ‘ county cricket,’ with no variation, and set to work to give more matches in which our star performers can take place together, even if counties find a difficulty in arranging the games so as not to clash with this better-class cricket.” F rom Yokohama Mr. Bernard C. Foster w rites:— War has broken out since you wrote, although up to the present it has made no particular difference to us here, except that Having at no period of my chequered exis­ tence been conversant with the higher mathe­ matics, for the time being I am unable to express an intelligent opinion of these new suggestions. But it strikes me that, in addi­ tion to the ordinary umpire, the game should include another official, a professional time­ keeper, with a thorough knowledge of arith­ metic and a stop-watch, for the adding or subtracting, say, of three hours, forty-nine minutes and three-fifths of a second to or from similar amounts during the three days’ play, is no sinecure for the average umpire. M r . J e p h s o n also has something to say about the horror which is shown by some when a match is drawn, and he concludes as follow s: “ I am not eulogising matches without a termination, but let me ask you this : Which is the more interesting, more full of the exciting incidents that, when we go for a day’s spectatoring, we delight to see—to see one side make 400 on a bit of asphalte, and then to watch the rain and the baking sun play havoc with the wicket and the other side scrambling on mud to the tune of 90 and 80— or at six o’clock on the Saturday to watch the last man, who has probably but a meagre knowledge of batting, bravely keeping up his end? Minute after minute goes slowly by, ball after ball beats him, but he is still there —it is half-past six, and he has saved the match! No doubt, from the statistician’s point of view, the game would have been far more luscious if it had ended at half-past one. Think of it—another glorious point scored in a competition! ” A t Port Elizabeth, F. J . Cook, who was in England last year, has recently done two good performances. Against Algoa he made 100 not out in a total of 160, and against Aberdeen he made 92 not out in a total of 144. In each match only one other man made double figures, Rogers scoring 33 in the first and Ritchie 34 in the second. The score o f the Port