Cricket 1905

CR ICK ET , A W E E KLY REOORD OP T H E GAM E. JUNE 29, 1905. D j @ e c = ,0 J = = ? ? i f t & . 1 f i I ) 0 © S c _ ; <- ........M “ Together joined in Cricket’s manly toil.” — B y r o n . No. 6 9 4 . VOL. X X IV . THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 1905. FB IC B 2d. A CHAT ABOUT MR. W. W. BEAD. When it was announced that Mr. W. W. Bead, the great Surrey cricketer of the seventies and eighties, had accepted an engagement to coach the young players at the Oval, there can hardly have been a boy in the land to whom the name was not familiar. For although Mr. Read has notplay ed for Surrey for some years, he was so great a cricketer that he may be said to divide the honour with Abel as the finest batsman ever turned out by the county. There are some who would place Abel first because he made more runs, and they would have a right to their opinion, but it must be remembered that Abel hardly began to score his thousands every year until after the time that Mr. Read, with whom he was contem­ porary, had retired from the game, and it may reasonably be argued that the better wickets were the main causes of Abel’s rapid advance to the front. But all things considered, it would seem better tobracket the two men as equal first. They both excelled in their different styles, and they were both at the very top of the tree among cricketers of the whole country. Mr. Read was one of the few batsmen who very sel­ dom get themselves out. He was a perfect terror to any bowler who was not quite accurate in his pitch, for he never failed to punish a loose ball. He never lost his head, and whether the game was altogether in favour of his side or altogether against it, he was to be depended on to do the absolute best of which he was capable. If there was a panic he was as cool as if he were practising at the nets, and, if under such a circumstance he failed to make runs, it was because the fates were against him, not because he was overawed by the bowling or could not play it. It was not usual for batsmen in his day to try their hardest to make their score as high as possible, and when they had made a hundred they generally hit at everything, for in those days a hundred practically won a match as a rule. But “ W. W .” was at the wickets to play cricket, and he was just as cool and careful over his hundred - and - first or hundred - a n d - MR. \V. W. READ. seventieth run as over his ninety-ninth ; just as careful as are batsmen of the present day. But he enjoyed to the full every minute that he was at the wickets. As an underhand bowler Mr. Read often met with considerable success. It would not be easy to describe his style. Suffice it to say that the bowler himself spoke proudly of his “ lobs,” while his opponents told him that such disreputable underhand stuff had never been previously seen on a cricket ground. Accuracy of pitch was not a noticeable characteristic of Mr. Read’s, but in the matter of variety he could easily have given points to Mr. Bosanquet. He was popularly supposed to have a break, and although I never heard of 'anyone who had discovered whether it was from the off or the leg, I believe that the bowler claimed that he broke both ways. But whatever may have been the merits or defects of his bowling, it is certain that a large number of batsmen were exceedingly diffident when dealing with it, and many a man who has made a large score and has ob­ tained complete command over the ordinary bowling of the side has retired dis­ comfited by a ball of many pitches from “ W. W .” Even in his school days Mr. Read was recognised as superior to the ordinary run of boy cricketers, and before he was thirteen the opponents of his school ob­ jected to his inclusion in the team, and accordingly he was promoted to play for the Reigate Priory C.C. At the age of thirteen he played for the Priory against Tonbridge and made 78, although Mr. R. Lipscombe, the well - known Kent fast bowler, was on the oppo­ site side. He was soon brought to the notice of Mr. Alcock, the Surrey secre­ tary, by Harry Jupp, the great Surrey player, who had come across him in club matches; and in 1873, at the age of eighteen, he began to play for the county. For eight years he was only able to play during the school holidays, for he was assisting his father in his school at Reigate. It was not until 1881 that he became a regular member of the team, but he had already made a name for himself as a very capable cricketer, and from that time until 1895