Cricket 1904

S e pt . 8, 1904. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 391 some disappointment were it to be abandoned.’ “ ‘ H e settles rur opinions for u s; it would be in keeping for him to furnish us with a new game,’ said Burford. “ ‘ Nothing of the kind will be per­ mitted,’ said Milton. ‘ I will go over and disabuse MacMasters’ mind immedi­ ately.’ “ ‘ What’s the good of fighting the inevitable ? ’ said Whitney. “ The West Lowton men watched their captain being worsted in eloquent dumb show. “ M ilton returned to them, confused and hesitating. “ ‘ I t’s all right, you fellows. Mac- Masters’ suggestions are harmless. The rules of cricket remain, but we are to play fourteen a side, the others providing us with substitutes—very likely men.’ “ ‘ Anything else ? ’ “ ‘ H e has provided four umpires, and the arrangement is that we play simul­ taneously upon two wickets, both sides batting at once.’ “ ‘ That means both sides field at once,’ growled the elder Parkyns, who inclined to pessimism. “ ‘ O f course, we don’t toss for innings, but for choice of wickets. As a matter of fact, 1 have won the toss, and we b it on the pitch in front of the pavilion. Our first pair go in there, eleven of us constitute the fielding team the other side of the ground, and the remaining man is, padded and gloved, awaiting his turn to bat. When a wicket falls, the outgoing batsman joins us in the field, and one o f us goes to the pavilion to get ready. The Eastdown men divide them­ selves similarly.’ “ ‘ It sounds funny,’ said Shatterfield. “ ‘ Funny ? ’ said the secretary ; *it is magnificent. It gives us just double the amount of cricket. MacMasters is the greatest mind of the century. The por­ traits of those taking part in this match will figure in future cricket histories to the end of time.’ “ ‘ I thought you would be pleased with what we have arranged,’ said Milton complacently. “ For West Lowton, Milton went in first, and took to the wickets with him Parkyns senior.................... A t lunch the score was 90 for four. “ In the meantime, Eastdown, batting at the further wicket, had obtained an advantage that would have secured them against defeat in a single-day match played in the ordinary way. The lunch score was 147 for none. “ A large company sat down to lunch. There was only one topic of conversation — the new way of playing cricket. Whilst there was keen criticism of details, the general judgment was favourable and even enthusiastic. The difficulty of ensuring that the two wickets should be equally good occurred to everyone. Against this it was urged that the choice o f innings constitutes an unfair advan­ tage. Beside?, the first consideration is not the record but the play. Another exception taken was that upon many grounds two wickets could not be pitched without danger to the players. “ MacMasters thought that this would not be serious. “ In the same space on the match ground of a London park you will see a dozen games in progress, and accidents are of the rarest occurrence. W ith but two, even allowing for harder hitting, the risk would be small. Of course, in the parks the new methods could be adopted with scarcely any change in procedure, and also upon large spaces devoted to private pitches, like Raynes Park, where one’s opponents are almost invariably other clubs on the same ground. “ The Sheriff of the county, who had driven ten miles to be present, proposed MacMaster’s health. Whether the change were to be adopted universally or not, there could be no doubt that the experi­ ment was a most interesting one. “ The host of the ‘ Lord Nelson,’ replying, made a regular speech. The charm of cricket, he said, had been its uncertainty, and its defect that the un­ fortunate must spend half their day doing nothing. The defect had been considered inseparable from the charm. He had never acquiesced in this view, and his mind had been busy with the problem of how to dissever them. They must judge for themselves whether or not he had succeeded. “ M ilton, already an ardent convert, spoke a few words. In five years’ time, except in first-class matches, single-pitch cricket would be unknown. “ A t four o ’clock, play up an both pitches was stopped for afternoon tea. The telegraph-board showed 330 for six. On the other wicket, West Lawton, who for much of the time had been playing an uphill game, had made 240 for seven. “ After the interval, scoring on both pitches was furious, but Eastdown w ic­ kets fell the more rapidly, one of the men that had been lent to West Low ton prov­ ing quite a capable left-hand medium. The thirteenth wicket fell at twenty minutes to six for a total of 502. No attempt was made to start a second innings, everyone swarming across to the pavilion to watch the close of West Low ton’s innings. The game was in a critical state. West Low ton had made 450, and had three wickets in hand. Shat­ terfield was batting. Encouraged b y the increased audience, he hit out lustily, adding sixteen in one over. The punished bowler was shunted, and a visitor named Newland, said to be fast from the pitch, substituted. Hutchings meant to take him off immediately if he were hit. Shatterfield awaited the new-comer with confidence. Requisitioned so late in tbe day, it was not Jikely that he would be good. The first ball came as an unwel­ come surprise, fairly humming past the off stump. Clearly it was not well to play this man back. Shatterfield pushed forward at the next two balls and played them to extra m id-off. The strokes looked sound, but the maker of them was conscious that he had been drawn out too far. To onlookers the balls appeared further pitched than they re illy were (some deliveries produce this effect). I Hutchings, at least, would have said they were half volleys. The fourth ball was a shade faster. Sbatterfield hesitated for a second whether to play forward or back, and saw his off stump knocked out of the ground. Whitney followed. He played the first ball he received for two, aud the sixth of the over, a real half volley, he drove for four. Newland was taken off. When will captains realise that fours in front of the wicket are not more disastrous than other boundaries ? “ The over from the other end yielded three fours— a cut, a snick and a bye, and Whitney made two boundaries from the bowler that had supplanted New- lauds. Trying to score a tingle, a foolish misunderstanding cost him his wicket. He had not even crossed. His successor number fourteen on the list, was a local substitute. He was a bootmaker, and enjoyed a reputation as a sticker, for no better reason than inability to score. “ ‘ Y ou must get him out before the other man has a chance to knock off the runs,’ said Hutchings. “ It was here that the bowler made a mistake. He knew that as a general rule it is good policy to keep the ball as far up to a batsma'i as he will permit, and because the bootmaker would not hit, fed him with half-volley s. They were blocked quite easily. And now it was the turn of Burford at the other end. From the first three balls, all real middle stumpers, he was unable to s o r e , but the fourth he turned to leg for four, and the fifth he pulled over his shoulder for a like num­ ber. H e played the sixth hard in front of short leg. It was a safe two, a possible three if they ran hard. The bootmaker showed an unexpected turn of speed. Two runs were made, render­ ing the score a tie, and the substitute, although the ball was in the air, cilled for a third. It was just a run, but, alas ! a puff of wind took off his hat and carried it towards cover-point, revealing a head as bald on top as au egg ; a bald­ ness the more surprising from a specious fringe of hair previously visible below the cap. A heartless crowd laughed, and the bootmaker, overwhelmed with con­ fusion, ran after his hat, crammed it upon his head, and saw h ij wickets knocked down amid a scene of delirious excitement and jo y unparalleled on the Eastdown cricket ground. “ The great match had ended in a tie, a thousand runs had been scored, and twenty-six wickets had fallen — the fullest day’s cricket upon record.” BBIXTON WANDERERS (2) v. SUTTON (2).— Played at Suttou, on August 13. B b ix to n W a n d k b k rs ( 2 ). A. J. Whyte, b Napper 1 W. A. Mitchell, not C. W. Philips, at out .......... . .4 9 Mason, b Siddall .. 44 S. Thurston, bDally 22 C. Hogg, b Dally ... 19 J. Maxwell, c & b A. V. Kuesell, b Dally 4 Napper ................10 J. B. Brooks, b D illy 0 B. A. ttlinvill, b Lid- A. Harbert, b Siddall 3 dall ...................32 J. W . E. Murray, b B 9, lb 2, w 1 .. 12 Siddall ................. — Total ...... 197 S u tton (2). S. G. Poole, b Maxwell 2 M. Mason, c Phillips, F. Collias, b Brooks ... 53 b Harbert ......... 1 K. 8. Dally, not out .. 77 B 2, lb 2, nb 1 ... 5 D. D. Napper, b Bar- — bert ........................ 5 Total (4 wkts )143 R. Siddall, C. J. Easton, J. R.Haynes, J. Sadler, V. de Slejer and H. Nickallsdid not bat.