Cricket 1905

J an . 26, 1905. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 11 was alike to him, and he scored with great freedom. He reached his century in 100 minutes, and his 137 not out was made in 135 minutes. From a spectator’s point of view the display was magnificent. Three times the hall flew over the picket fence, and on twenty occasions it rattled up against the boundary mark. Early in his innings he turned a ball which gave the wicket-keeper a possible but scarcely probable chance of catching and stumping, and later on a high drive was badly misjudged. An idea of the pace at which runs were made may be gained from the fact that 23 overs yielded 205 runs, practically 9 runs each. F b o m the Adelaide Observer: — In the Sturt v. Port Adelaide match Dar­ ling and Hack had not been batting long together when the former hit a ball and ran. As Hack did not at first respond, Darling returned to his crease just before the wicket­ keeper disarranged the wicket. To his sur­ prise, however, he found Hack in the crease with him. Jeanes threw the ball to Drew at the other end, and Hack, never dreaming of trying to get back, started for the pavilion. He noticed that Drew did not knock a bail off, so quietly jogging round the square-leg umpire he apparently made for the reserve, and crossed to his own crease in a diagonal line. The bowler standing with the leather in his hand had the mortification of seeing Hack made good his ground 20 yards away before he realised that no one had been given out at the opposite end. The irony of the incident to the scasiders lay in the fact that the tall Sturt batsman afterwards made 120 runs. Q u e e n s l a n d cricketers have been exercised in their minds over the decision of the Queensland C.A. commit'ee to disqualify Dr. MacDonald, the Leicester­ shire cricketer, for the district club for which he has played for years. The grounds given for this decision were that the Doctor on his return from England in November resided for a time in another district. With reference to this our Brisbane correspondent writes:— The Queensland Cricket Association Com­ mittee unanimously decided that Dr. Mac­ Donald was not qualified for Fortitude Valley, which electorate he has represented since 1897. But in face of this decision the selectors chose him to play for Brisbane in the recent country match, the Doctor, how­ ever, declining to play. On Tuesday last (15th inst.) the delegates of the various clubs, at a meeting of the association, unanimously agreed to a motion requesting the committee to reconsider the matter of MacDonald’s dis­ qualification. In the meantime the selectors have chosen the Doctor to practise for the forthcoming matches v. Victoria and New South Wales. W h it in g on December 17th the same correspondent says:— “ Since my last letter the matter of Dr. MacDonald’s disqualification has been finally settled. A special meeting of the Queens­ land Cricket Association was held on Decem­ ber 9th to hear the committee’s reply to the request of the delegates that the disqualifi­ cation of Dr. MacDonald be reconsidered. The committee held to their former decision, ‘ that as Dr. MacDonald had been absent from Queensland for six months, and had resided in North Brisbane on his return, he was not qualified to play for Fortitude Valley.’ A vote of want of confidence was moved, and, after a considerable amount of discussion, was defeated by 26 votes to 14. In consequence of this decision, the Doctor, so he tells me, has made up his mind to play no more public cricket in Queensland.” H. G. S . M o r t o n , who scored 135 not out against Victoria, on his first appear­ ance for Queensland, is native-born, having seeu the light at Maryborough twenty-two years ago. He was educated at Maryborough Grammar School and Melbourne University. Though in the Eleven at Maryborough, he did not gain his colours at the University, which he left three years ago. He bats right hand and has a crouching style. His best strokes are the pull and the cut past th rd man, but he also drives vigorously. In addition to being a fine batsman, he is a splendid field, both in the slips and in the country. O n Saturday, December 12th, C. F. Morgan made a new record for Queens­ land by scoring 258, not out, for Forti­ tude Valley v. Oxley, at the Exhibition Ground, Brisbane. R. Eve, in the same innings, made 111 not out. A f t e r making 237 for six wickets (declared) against Flores, the Buenos Aires O.O. dismissed six of its oppo­ nents for 58, when rain began to fall. Twice the players had to make a hurried rush to the pavilion, but the game pro­ ceeded until nine wickets were down for 97, when just as the last man was about to take his place at the crease a tremen­ dous hailstorm came to the rescue of the Flores team, and the match was drawn. For Buenos Aires J. O. Anderson played a fine innings of 106, while II. F. Vibart, the old Harrovian, who was on the same side, scored 15. T h e team of the Waverley C.C. at Sydney now includes three Gregorys— S. E. and Charles and their cousin Stan­ ley, a son of Albtrt Gregory, whose five brothers all played for New South Wales. Stanley is a fast right-hand bowler of some promise, and in his first match he dismissed Duff and Hopkins. New Z e a l a n d cricketers are of opinion that S. T. Callaway, the old Australian player who is now liviug at Canterbury, N .Z., is worthy of a place in the Aus­ tralian eleven. It will be remembered that he played fine cricket against Lord Hawke’s team during its tour in New Zealand. His recoid for his first three matches this season is as follows :— Agiinst. Balls. Huns. Mdns. Witts. Lancaster Park ......... 72 .. 32 ... 3 6 , 96 .. 19 ... 3 ... 6 M idland.......................... 90 ... 21 ... 3 ... 7 T otal......... 498 151 29 27 W r it in g on December 14th in the Sydney Mail, “ Shortslip” says :— I do not think that either of the famous couple, Trumper and Duff, is up to concert pitch. The former has given brilliant displays, but to my mind his timing does not possess the perfection of a couple of years ago, and Dufl is not in form. And again I have seen Hopkins bat better than he is now doing, and although it has long been noticed. that Syd. Gregory, when failing most in club cricket, has the biggest first-class perform­ ances, still I must confess that I would be more pleased to see him getting runs. Howell will probably find the Adelaide wicket to his liking, but there are many who would have been more satisfied that he would do well over there if they saw him securing wickets with better results than are being met with in grade contests. Likewise, Cotter. M r . H a r r y M o se s , who is almost the only great Australian batsman who never visited England with one of the touring teams, represented New South Wales against Victoria in the inter-State tournament at bowls in Melbourne in December. A g r e a t many readers of Cricket will be g lid to hear that E. H. D. Sewell, the well-known Essex cricketer, has been offered and has accepted the field editor­ ship of the Standard. It will be remem­ bered that Mr. Sewel), who enters on his new duties on February 1st, narrowly missed becoming the secretary of the Lei­ cestershire County C.C. a year or two ago. Readers of “ Gossip ” were familiar with his name long before he began to qualify for Essex, for his wonderful scores in India were duly chronicled in Cricket —frequently in no other paper. Presum­ ably his new duties will prevent him from playing much cricket, and his loss will be very greatly felt by Essex. W h il e he was in India Mr. S9well scored 7,832 runs in 160 completed innings, and took 713 wickets for 6,491 runs. Twenty-one times he made scores of over a hundred, his two highest totals beiDg 246 and 225 not out. His record for a season is 2,665 runs in nineteen innings, average 140 (1897-1898), and 152 wickets at 9| runs apiece. He also played two separate innings of a hundred in a match, and in 1898 he made three hundreds in successive innings. His doings for Essex and the Essex Club and Ground will be familiar to readers of Cricket. But it is a curious thing that although his success as a bowler in club cricket has been extraordinary, he has never had a real trial with the ball in county cricket. Last year hehad by farthe bestbowling average in Essex club cricket, and yet in the Essex match at Lord’s, in which the only two well-known Essex bowlers on the side were dead beat, he was allowed three overs only in an innings of over four hundred. It seems like the old tale of a prophet having no honour in his own country. I t is almost invariably the rule that a batsman snores more runs on his own ground than on any other, but it is noticeable that while Mr. Sewell has made about 1,800 runs in first- class cricket away from Leyton, he has only made about 700 on the county ground. It seems