Cricket 1905

J une 15, 1905. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME 201 It will be noticed that G. L. Jessop, J. Gunn and Lees, who were included among the thirteen men chosen for the first test match have been passed over, and that Haigh and Hirst come in. There is a general concensus of opinion among cricketers that a vast mistake has been made in leaving out Jessop, for, although he is not in form just at prefent as a batsman, his fielding is so brilliant that he invariably saves more runs than most men make. In the first innings of Notts at Oxford on Thursday last W. H. B. Evans took three wickets with successive balls. His victims were G. Gunn, Chambers, and Barnsdale. In the course of the innings he took six wickets for 25 runs. When the total was 113 five Notts wickets fell without increasing the score. A l th o u g h Rhodes has sometimes been very successful on true wickets, it is when he has a pitch to suit him that his real genius comes out, and he then shows himself to have no superiors, and perhaps no equals. He has not done much this year except when the wicket has helped him considerably, but at Cambridge last Thursday he found a pitch to suit him, and the result was six wickets for sixteen runs in fourteen overs. O n the evening of the first day’s play of their match against the M.C.C., the Australians were entertained to dinner in the pavilion at Lord’s. Mr. C. E. Green, the president of tt^B M.C.C., was in the chair, and among those present were Lord Harris, the Right Hon. Sir Spencer Ponsonby Fane, Messrs. V. E. Walker and W. H. Patterson, besides the amateur members of the M.C.C. team. L a s t year, in the month of June, there was 4-6 of an inch of rain. The average rainfall of June is 2 inches. On the 9th of the present month the rainfall in the London district had reached 2} inches, and the thunderstorm on Satur­ day, Sunday’s drizzle and the rain on Monday brought it up to 3J inches. Out of the first twelve days in this month rain fell on ten, and a good deal of it at that. The record for June, 1903, was 6 inches, so that in London we (are in a fair way to leaving that behind. If rainfall were reckoned by the hour instead of by the inch, the present June must surely have easily beaten the record already—as far as London is concerned. L a s t week will be remembered for some time by cricketers who were down to play in matches in London. On the Monday and Tuesday the rain fell steadily without a single break. On the Wednes­ day it was merely wet. The Thursday was moderately fine. On the Friday it rained steadily nearly the whole of the day, and there was a fine thunderstorm in the middle of the Saturday to end the week. O n Saturday Alec Hearne, the Kent cricketer, had a somewhat remarkable analysis for M.C.C. against South Lynn, at Eastbourne. The details are as follow s:— O. M. R. w. First innings .......... 9 6 6 7 Second innings.......... 6.2 6 1 6 U ntil Friday last the Australians had not been compelled to rest idle for a single day in any of their matches, either on account of rain or the early finish of a game. They even had three full days’ cricket at the beginning of last week in Yorkshire, although there was practically no play in the south of England. This may or may not be a record, but it is certain tbat not many Australian teams have been so fortunate in the way of weather. S in ce the H on. F. S. Jackson, the England captain of 1905, began to play in tbe test matches he has scored 1,005 runs in them, with an average of 43 69. Ranjitsinhji has an average of 44’9o for about the same number of innings. It will be noticed from the follow ing list of his scores that in 16 matches he has only three times failed to score more than 40 in one innings or the other :— 1893. Lord’s—c Blackham,b Tur­ ner................................. 91 c Bruce, b Giffen 5 Oval—mn out ..............103 1896. Lord’s—c Darling, b Giffen 44 Manchester—run out........ 18 c H’Kibbin, b Giffen ........ 1 Oval—cM’Kibbin,bTrumble'45 b Trumble........ 2 1899. Nottingham—c Barling, b Noble ........................... 8 b Howell ... ... 0 Lord’s—b Jones ...............73 c and b Trumble 37 Leeds—b Trumble ........ 9 Manchester—c Trumble, b Jones ........................... 44 not out .......... 14 Oval—b Jones ...............118 1902. Birmingham—b Jones ... 53 Lord’s—not out ....... . ...' 55 Sheffield—c Gregory, b Saunders ... .............. 3 b Noble ........ 14 Manchester —c Duff, b c Gregory,bSaun- Trumble ....... . ........ 128 ders............... 7 Oval—cAnnstrong,b Saun­ ders ............................ 2 c and b Trumble 49 1905. Nottingham—b Cotter ... 0 not out.............. 82 T he list of batsmen who, with more than three innings, have distinguished themselves against the Australians this year is short. It is as follows :— A. C. MacLaren, 1 and 48, 0 and 10, 28 and 23, 2 and 140. F. S. Jackson, 42 and 3, 0 and 82,* 85. Rhodes, 0 and 22, 29 and 39,* 70 and 13.* Hayward, 22 and 129,* 5 and 47. C. B. Fry, 23 and 45,* 25 and 26, 27. A. O. Jones, 72 and 100, 4 and 30. P. F. Warner, 0 and 10, 85 and 0, 5. Denton, 31 and 9, 52 and 153.* Tyldesley, 45 and 14, 56 and 61. Of the men who have played in fewer innings Captain Wynyard has made scores of 61 and 3, Sharp 52 and 0, Iremonger 5 and 40, of A. E. Lawton 40, C. E. de Trafford 63 and 1, Whitehead 56 and 20, V. F. S. Crawford 52 and 6 , and Coe 15 and 64 not out. N o te .— Scores over 50 are in larger type. It will be seen that there are eighteen of them in twelve matches. A c r ic k e t e r writes to tbe Sportsman to complain that since he became a pro­ fessional he has been unable to find an insurance company who will insure him against the risk of accidents. The com­ pany with which he was previously insured declined to continue his policy when he adopted cricket as a profession. It is not very easy to see why this should be, for accidents to professional cricketers are not very numerous. But the Crick­ eter’s Fund Friendly Society, whose secretary is Mr. Henry Luff, would seem to offer a way out of the difficulty. I n the second innings of Notts against Oxford University last Friday, A. O. Jones was caught at cover point after being at the wickets for twenty minutes without making a run—a most unusual state of affairs for him. But even in this innings he had remaikable luck, for a ball from Evans hit his leg stump hard without removing the bails, and then went for four byes. W h in W. G. was nearly fifty years old he plaj ed so many fine innings that not even the most sceplical of modern cricketers could doubt, or thought of doubting, that he must have been a truly magnificent player in his younger days. It is true that scepticsl modern cricketers have never been quite convinced that in W . G .’s time wickets were not quite as good as they are now, but a remark made by A . C. Maclaren in Monday’s Daily Chronicle will do more to convince them than anything that has ever been written. He says:— “ At present our games at Old Trafford are played with rather too much luck entering into the matter for, whoever gets the blind- length shooter must go, to say nothing of repeated difficulties presented to the batsmen by the rising ball of good length.” Must go ! In W. G .’s time men often played a dozen shooters in an innings which lasted an hour, and rising balls of good length were almost as numerous as good length balls. But, if shooters and rising balls are to become as numer­ ous as they used to be, modern batsmen will, without the slightest doubt, learn to play them as easily as they were played by their predecessors—there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. D b . M. E. P a v r i , the Parsee cricketer who represented Middlesex on a few occasions while pursuing his medical studies in England some years ago, is still giving practical evidence that he retains all his old ability as an all-round cricketer. In a match recently at Oota- camund between Madras aud “ The W orld” he took five of the former’s wickets for 46, besides being the second highest run-getter on the side with a score of 24 in a total of 117. A n o t h e r capable exponent of the game in an outlying part of the Empire well known on English cricket grounds in the near past, achieved a double first in Tasmanian cricket during the season just over. This was C. J. Eady, one of