Cricket 1905

170 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. Ju n e 1, 1905. Some sad contrasts:— Average on Monday morning. Score in first innings of England v. Australia. Hayward .. 47-81 5 A. O. Jones .. 51-83 4 A. C. Maclaren 34-27 2 F. S. Jackson.. 42- 0 J. Gunn .. .. 35-81 8 G. L. Jessop .. 27- 0 Total .. 238-72 19 Some more contrasts—not so sad :— The England score at Nottingham when four wickets were down on Monday morning:— A. O. Jones, b Laver 4 Hayward, b Cotter ... 5 Tyldesley, not out ...22 A.C. Maclaren, cKelly, b Laver ................. 2 Hon. F. S. Jackson, b Cotter ................. 0 Extras ..........16 T otal..........49 The England score in the second innings when four wickets were down:— A. G. Maclaren, c Duff, b Laver .................140 Hayward, c Darling, b Armstrong ..........47 Tyldesley,cand bDuff 61 F. S. Jackson, not out 10 A. O. Jones, b D uff... 30 Extras.......... ... 13 T o ta l..........301 W h en he had scored 13 runs in the first innings of Australia against Eng­ land on Monday, Victor Trumper, who was playing in his best style, had to retire. It was found that when fielding he had slipped and torn the fibres of one of the muscles of his back. He was ordered to bed by the doctors, and it is feared that his injury may keep him out of the field for some time. His loss to the Australians is incalculable, for even if he never made a run his fielding is so brilliant that he would be worth playing in the team for that alone. A r n o ld was also injured in the test match, dislocating his thumb when field­ ing during the first innings of the Aus­ tralians on Tuesday. Fry and Hirst are still kept out of the field by their injuries. Th e return Inter-state match between New South Wales and Queensland, played at Brisbane on April 24th and 25th, proved to be a very easy thing for the former, who won by an innings and 12 runs. Crouch (49 and 36) was the most successful batsman for Queensland, who were dismissed for 148 and 194. T h e bat with which he made all his runs in New Zealand during the recent visit of the Australian team was presented by Clem Hill to Harry Graham, the brilliant cricketer of the Australian teams of 1893 and 1896, who has been very successful as coach to the Boys’ High School iu Dunedin. As it was re­ presented by Graham to F. H. Campbell, one of the School, in recognition of a pleasant engagement, “ Clem’s ” bat remains in Dunedin as a souvenir of a great player. R . B. R ees, the Australian, who has done some great performances with the ball in Singapore, was presented with a Bilver cup, the third he has received in appreciation of his cricket feats during the last twelve months, recently for another bowling achievement. Playing for Eleven of Singapore against Eleven of Ceylon men, resident in the Straits, he finished up with an analysis of eight wickets for 9 runs, of which eight were got from his first over. T h e four day’s cricket at the Oval last week realised the pretty stiff aggregate of 1,914 runs. Surrey and Warwick­ shire, as stated in “ Gossip ” last Thurs­ day, created a new record for the Surrey ground in the shape of a total of 1 299 runs for the three days, some 45 ahead of the previous best for a first-class match at the Oval. The match between Surrey Club and Ground and the Battersea Club on Friday also produced some excep­ tional scoring, with 625 runs as the result of the day’s cricket. In the first four days of the week, the Surrey eleven were interested, one way or the other, to the extent of 1,774 runs for thirty-six wickets, 1,299 for twenty-seven in the Warwickshire match, and 475 for nine wickets at Aldershot. T h e June number of “ C. B. Fry’s Magazine” contains much that will interest cricketers. The frontispiece is a first-class portrait of Canon Lyttelton. Victor Trumper has an interesting article on “ The Australian batsman in the making.” C. B. Fry writes well on “ Points in batsmanship,” many of the points being illustrated by pictures of himself in different attitudes. There are also notes, accompanied by illustrations, about various cricketers,including W. G., Alfred Shaw, and Ernest Vogler. It is a very interesting number. O n Tuesday C. Maclaren played a magnificent innings of 140 for England against the Australians. This is his highest score in a test match, his previous record being 124 at Adelaide in 1898. He has never before made a hundred in a test match in England, but in 1899 he scored 88 not out at Lord’s. Iu Australia he has made a hundred in test matches four times, viz., the 124 mentioned above, 120 at Melbourne in 1895, 109 at Sydney in 1897, and 116 at Sydney in 1901. By universal consent his innings on Tuesday was one of the best he has ever played, which is saying much. I t has always been counted as one of the greatest points in favour of the Australians that they never despair, no matter how much the game may seem to go against them. It would be a thousand pities if they were to lose the reputation which they have so deservedly gained as a team of fighters. But on Tuesday afternoon when their bowling was once mastered they seemed to give up all hope of victory, and their only object in life seemed to be to keep the runs down. For a long time Armstrong and McLeod bowled very wide of the wickets to Hay­ ward and Midaren, who declined to hit, and even occasionally kicked the ball, The crowd jeered and became somewhat fractious—and for a time there was a prospect of an unpleasant scene. Now, it has always been maintained in Cricket that a captain is j ustified in trying to keep the runs down by any legitimate means, and there is nothing whatever in the laws to prevent a bowler from keeping off the wicket. It is admittedly a sign of weakness when bowlers have to ab mdon attack for defence, but this is quite another matter; if a side wishes to play for a draw, the bowlers as well as bats­ men may endeavour by any legitimate means in their power to bring about this result. At the same time extreme measures will seldom appeal to a crowd which, as it pays the piper, expects to be allowed, to a certain extent at any rate, to call the tune. I t will be remembered that in July last year, on the same ground, Notts had no chance of beating Lancashire on the last day of the match, but might not have been able to stave off defeat. Lanca­ shire had made runs at a great pace on the Friday, and if they had scored at the same rate on the next morning they might have made enough runs to put Notts in again and beat them. Where­ fore A. O. Jones bowled wide of the leg stump for ab rat an hour and a half, by the end of which time all chance of defeat was over, Bince MacLaren and Tyldesley would not hit him. Then Jones, having accomplished his object, put on his ordinary bowlers. Probably Darling had this match in mind when he tried his experiment on Tuesday. In connection with the art of bowling wide of the wicket in order to keep runs down, it will be remembered that in the matcli at Worcester last year between Kent and Worcestershire Kent had to make 81 runs in three-quarters of an hour, and set about their task with such energy that they won the match with a quarter of an hour to spare. Mr. H. K. Foster, the Worcestershire captain, would not avail himself of his opportunity of trying the wide-of-the-wicket method, and after the match wrote to the Daily Mail as follows:— “ I should like the opinion of county captains as to whether it would have been fair of me to put nine men on the on-side and howl to leg. I could easily have pre­ vented Kent getting the runs, hut it did not seem to me to he the right thing to do. Would other captains have done this ? ” A f in e r all-round performance than that of Bosacquet in the match between Middlesex and. Sussex has seldom been seen. In addition to his two separate hundreds, he bowled 24 overs and three balls, two maidens, 75 runs for three wickets in the first innings; and in the second 13 overs and two balls, one maiden, 53 runs and eight wickets, thus taking 11 wickets in the match for 128 runs. From the two tables which follow it will be seeu that up to the first test match the members of the selacted England team who had previously played against the present Australians, had a record of 27-72 per wicket in bowling, and 34-95