Cricket 1904

CRICKET, AWEEKLYRECORDOFTHEGAME. SEPT. 1, 1904. # y tm .z fL A a -V. I S M m S u f I fc?-1 r - mmnun Uy ^ —- I 1 E v ' I s y E * J j P* W f “ Together joined in Cricket’s manly toil.”— Byron. v o . 673 . v o l . x x i i i . T H U R S D A Y , S E P T . 1 , 1 9 0 4 . . p b i c e 2d. A CHAT ABOUT 0 . B LY TH E . It may fairly be claimed by the Kent committee that Blythe is a product of their nursery at Tonbridge, which, although it has not been in existence for many years, has already brought into notice quite a large number of players who m ight otherwise have remained in obscurity. There can be no doubt that the system adopted by Kent has very many points in its favour, for while it may pass over a com ing Trumper or Rhodes because he gives a feeble exhibition of cricket on his first appearance, it at least gives him a chance if he makes any impression at all as a debutant. It enables the Kent committee to keep promising young players under their notice, to bring out their best qualities and to eradicate their worst, to give them opportunities of trying their strength against opponents of their own calibre, and finally to bring them into county cricket fully prepared for the fray. But there never has been and never will be a system which w ill enable a com ­ mittee or an individual cricketer to recognise the swan in the ugly duckling before it is too late. There are in England hundreds of committeemen who can re­ cognise the swan when he is unmistakably a swan, but only a very few recognise him when he is merely a ball of fluff. Hence it is that one so often sees notes in the papers to the effect that “ That exceedingly promis­ ing young player ‘ X ,’ who is qualifying for Loamshire, will be available for that county next summer. ‘ X ’ was born in Hillshire.” Fortunately for the feel­ ings of individual members of com ­ mittees, it seldom leaks out until long afterwards that ‘ X ,’ when appar­ ently an ugly duckling, was brought under their notice with an urgent request that he should not be allowed to slip through their fingers. One is inclined to wonder what would have happened to V ictor Trumper or C. T. B. Turner if they had been examined on the various county grounds in England before their names were known to all the world. The odds are that they would have been told on many of them that they had no earthly chance of ever distinguishing themselves in the cricket world. But Kent, like Australia, seems pretty fortunate in possessing men who are such good judges of the game that they not only know a fine player when they see him, but also know him when to the ordinary onlooker he is not a fine player. Hence we seldom hear of a Kent man making a name for himself as a representative o f some other county, although even in Kent men have been allowed to drift away, for want of a little foresight. But at any rate no mis­ take was made with Blythe, and those who saw the makings of a great bowler in him from the first are to be congratulated on their perspicacity. Undoubtedly Blythe is the best, indeed, almost the only great slow left-hand bowler the county has produced since the days of Jimmy W ootton, who was great at a time when the bow ling strength of the county was almost at its weakest. When once a slow left-hand bowler finds his feet it is seldom that he takes very long to come to the front, and Blythe was no exception to the rule. H e first played for Kent when he was twenty years of age, and in his second season, 1900, he went right to the front with a record of 114 wickets for the county at an average of 18-47 per wicket. A serious illness in the winter prevented him from doing himself complete justice during the next season, but in the autumn Maclaren took him to Aus­ tralia with his unsuccessful team, not being able to secure the services of W il­ fred Bhodes. Blythe did so well in Australia at first as to raise great hopes that he was just the bowler that was required, but an injury to hig bow ling hand handicapped him so greatly that his record was disappointing, Nevertheless, so far from being spoiled by the visit, like so many other bowlers, he was in better form than ever after his return, and in 1902 he took 111 wickets for Kent at an average of 15'47 per wicket, while last year—a bowler’s year—he had the splen