Cricket 1904

Aug. 25, 1904. CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 361 rough, the old Cambridge Blue, who made 125 ; Mr. C. Toppin, the old Cam­ bridge Blue who has had so much to do with the success of the Malvern boys of late yea rs; and Mr. W . E . W. Collins, one of the very best fast bowlers of his day, who, not being eligible to play for any county, made but few appearances in first-class cricket, although they were generally successful. F ob Buckhurst H ill last week, H . Pascoe took all ten wickets of the Colves- ton C.C. in the first innings for 61 runs. F ob Cambridgeshire against Hertford­ shire on Friday last Hobbs, a young professional who is qualifying for Surrey, made 195, his hits included a 5 and twenty three 4’ s. I t is stated that R. Burrows, the W or­ cestershire professional, is to have a benefit match next year. I n the match between Cranleigh and Warnham Lodge at Horsham last week, T. G. P . Castley and G. G. Rawson put up 312 for the first wicket of the former team. Castley made 202 and Rawson 126. Cranleigh declared at 351 for two wickets, and Warn ham L odge then made 269 for five wickets, a total for the day of 620. T hb question whether it is a wicked thing to bow l nearly wide of the wicket came prominently to the front last week. In the match between Sussex and Yorkshire the Sussex bowlers persisted in trying the “ off theory,” and as the Y ork ­ shire batsmen would not take risks, they scored very slowly. When Sussex went in some of the Yorkshire bowlers were even more persistent than their oppo­ nents in keeping the ball nearly wide, while the Sussex batsmen were even more unenterprising than the Yorkshiremen had been. The result was that the match was most uninteresting throughout. One of its most carious features was the batting of C. B. Fry on Saturday. He had scored 160 not out on the previous day, and took two hours and twenty minutes to make the remaining 69 runs, which completed his 229. I t may be argued that if bowlers were always to insist on bow ling nearly wide and batsmen declined to hit, there would be an impaste. But the cricket public would see to that, as they did some years ago when theNotts batsmen adopted the most tedious m ethods; they would simply keep away from matches until a more satisfactory state o f affairs prevailed. O n the other hand, the match between Worcestershire and Kent, in which Kent had to make 81 runs to win in three- quarters of an hour, brought a letter from Mr. H . K . Foster to the Daily Mail as follow s:— “ I should like the opinion of county cap­ tains as to whether it would have been fair of me to put nine men on the on side and bowl to leg. I could easily have prevented them getting the runs, but it did not seem to me to be the right thing to do. Would other captains have done this ?” I t would seem that Mr. Foster missed a splendid chance of trying an interesting experiment. There is no law in the land to compel a bowler to bow l straight, and if he wishes to keep runs down there can be no reason whatever why he should keep the ball on the wicket if he thinks he can do better by bow ling wide of it. But it may be said with the utmost confidence that if Mr. Foster had put nine men on the on side and bow led MR. B. B. H. BAILY (SlU Tey). „ (From a photo by Messrs. Hills <Ss Saunders, Hrrrow.) to leg when Kent went in, the batsmen would have hit at every ball he bow led without any hesitation whatever; they would probably have asked for nothing better. S t a t is t ic ia n s explained on Monday that Lancashire, b y drawing the match with Notts, made their position secure as leaders in the championship table. Even in the event of a defeat in each of their remaining two fixtures, agaiust Leicestershire and Derbyshire, they would have a record of thirteen points in seventeen finished matches and a per­ centage of 76'47, whereas the highest possible for Yorkshire was 66'66, and for Kent 62'50. L ancashire was the champion county in 1881 and 1897, while in 1882 it was reckoned as equal with Notts, and 1889 equal with Notts and Surrey. In 1881, when Lancashire was unbeaten, the county only played eleven matches, of which three were drawn. In 1897 twenty- six matches were played, of which six­ teen were won, three lost, and seven drawn. In the present season, as far as it has gone, twenty-five matches have been played, fifteen won, and ten drawn. It may be noted that since July 30th Lancashire has not won a single match. R. E . H . B a i l y , who b y the way is, in addition to beinga good batsman, awicket- keeper distinctly above the average, is a son of Mr. E. P . Baily who played for Harrow in 1869 and 1870, and got his Blue at Cambridge in 1874 mainly by reason of his ability as a stumper. This year’s Har­ row captain batted with great pluck and nerve against E ton at Lord’s last summer as well as this, particularly in the recent match when he very nearly averted defeat with a very fine second score of 72 in spite of an'injury to his eye earlier in the game. W ith every physical advantage as a batsman, it will be a great surprise if he does not make a name for himself in first- class cricket. He is going up to Cambridge this autumn, and his form there next summer will be watched with interest. W h e n one remembers that Mead and Kortright dropped out of the Essex team this season, and that Gillingham, A. J. Turner and R . P. Keigw in were only available in a few matches, one is rather sur­ prised that the county has done so well, and not that it has done so badly. With a very little extra luck Essex would have had quite a good season ; but to alter slightly Napoleon’s famous remark, “ Luck is always on the side of the strongest battalions.” T h e r e can be no doubt that during the past month Kent has been by far the strongest county, and it is a great pity that, as usual, it had to put very weak teams in the field during the early part of the season. From the beginning of August up to the end of last week Kent had a brilliant record, beating Essex, Surrey, Somerset, Worcestershire, and Hampshire, and bringing about a drawn game with Gloucestershire after a splen­ did up-hill fight. But it is notorious that the Kent team is always powerful in August, and it is a little amusing to read the complacent remarks which have recently appeared in some of the papers by prophets who are congratulating themselves on having foretold early in the season that Kent would have to be reckoned with later. C. B . F r y and Hayward have now each played ten innings of a hundred or