Cricket 1905

330 CRICKET; A WEEKLY RECORD OP THE GAME. Aug. 10, 1905. F or the last month there has been a close race between C. B. Fry and Hirst for the leading position in the averages, and gradually the two men drew nearer together. On Monday morning last week they stood thus :— Inns. Notout. Total. Highest. Aver. C. B. Fry... 31 ... 3 ... 1926 ... 233 ... 68.78 Hirst........ 32 ... 8 ... 1612 ... 341 ... 67.16 On Thursday morning Hirst had crept up a little nearer :— Inns. Notout. Total. Highest. Aver. C. B. Fry... 33 ... 3 ... 2020 ... 233 ... 6733 Hirst........ 33 ... 8 ... 1676 ... 311 ... 67.10 Fry did not play at the end of the week, but Hirst made 39 not out for Yorkshire against Hampshire, with the result that in Monday’s list he was leading at last:— Inns. Notout. Total. Highest. Aver* Hirst.......... 34 ... 9 ... 1715 ... 341 ... 08.6 O. B. Fry... 33 ... 3 ... 2020 ... 233 ... 67.33 This week Hirst has made 6 and 6 against Lancashire, while Fry has not played. So that the two men now stand as follow s:— Inns. Not out. Total. Highest. Aver. O.B. Fry... 33 ... 3 ... 2020 ... 233 ... 67'33 Hirst........ 36 ... 9 ... 1727 ... 341 ... 6396 F our men are now within measurable distance of making 2,000 runs this season. Up to Monday, Fry, with 2,020, stood alone, but Hayward’s total was then 1,855, Denton’s 1,799, Noble’s 1,780 and Hirst’s 1,715. If Trumper is anxious to approach the record of 2,570 which he made in 1902, he will have to hasten, as on Monday his total was only 1,342, twelve runs more than Clement H ill’s. T he names of the men who, on Mon­ day’s lists of averages, had scored over a thousand runs, are as follows:—Fry, Hirst, Noble, Quaife, L. G. Wright, McGahey, Warner, Hayward, Denton, Iremonger, Armstrong, Hill, Trumper, Darling, Duff, Kinneir, Sharp, Bowley, Poidevin, Spooner, O. J. B. Wood, Tyl- dealey, J. Seymour, Carpenter, Maclaren, Vine, Knight, A. Baker, Rhodes, Hayes, G. Gunn, A. O. Jones, Hobbs and K il­ lick—a lengthy list. Several well-known men were in the nine hundreds, viz. : F. S. Jackson, E. M. Sprot, A. P. Day, G. L. Jessop, Keif, J. Gunn and R. A. Young. I n bowling, W . Brearley was within a wicket of Lees, whose total was 141 on Monday. Rhodes still stood alone as having made a thousand runs and taken a hundred wickets, but it seems likely that before the end of the season he will be joined by Armstrong who required 25 wickets, Hirst 30 wickets, Hayes 27 wickets, Arnold 28 wickets and 287 runs, Relf 15 wickets and 2 runs. A fter the innings of Notts at the Oval on Bank Holiday, a collection was made on the ground on behalf of Lees, who took eight wickets for 45 runs. It realised £41. I t has of late become quite the fashion to imagine that a fast bowler is not of the slightest use unless he has a hard wicket upon which to try his skill. When the wickets are slow, fast bowlers are generally left out of the team or are passengers in it. But possibly the great success of Cotter at Worcester last week, and of Brearley at Sheffield on Monday, will induce county captains to give a trial to their fast bowlers at times when the wicket does not seem to have been specially made for them. The idea that a fast bowler must have a fast wicket is quite a product of modern days. D e s p it e the unpromising weather and the outcry in some of the papers that no one goes to see a county championship match nowadays, there were about 16,000 spectators at the Oval on Monday, of whom 14,477 paid for admission. Yet Surrey, by losing to Kent last week at Beckenham, had practically lost all hopes of winning the championship, and Notts has never been seriously in the running this season. A t Sheffield on Monday 19,692 people paid to see Yorkshire and Lancashire, and there must have been twenty-three or twenty-four thousand spectators alto­ gether. Nowhere was the weather favourable, but on every ground where a county match was played there was a large crowd. T u b ups and downs of the game at the Oval on Bank Holiday (Notts v. Surrey) had their counterpart at Sheffield (York­ shire v. Lancashire). In each match the side which batted first made a small scare and ended the day at a disadvantage, the opposing sides having each lost eight wickets and having a useful lead, Surrey 55 and Lancashire 87. In each first innings there was only one stand of any note (J. Gunn and Day for Notts, and Tunnicliffe and Jackson for Yorkshire). In each second innings there was a stand for the first wicket (41 by Hobbs and Hayward for Surrey, and 90 by by Maclaren and Spooner for Lancashire). Lees took eight wickets for 45 for Surrey, and Brearley seven for 35 for Lancashire. T h e following extracts from Tuesday’s Daily Mail referring to the match between Yorkshire and Lancashire at Sheffield, show how players may differ :— Yorkshire’s lucky captain won the toss, and hatted on a slow wicket. . . . In the absence of the sun, the wicket was not difficult, but occasionally one turned, and Brearley made a few get up to a nasty height. Every credit is due to MacLaren and Spooner for their determined first-wicket stand. . . Every run had to be fought for just then. . . . DuriDg the last hour and a half the wicket was gettingmore of a bowler’s one every minute. J. T . T y ld e s le y . I am not quite sure it will be to our advantage in the long run to have won the toss, but having done so our captain could do no other but go in. . . . \Vith the wicket being so hard underneath, the ball was con­ stantly getting up to an awkward height. . . . Maclaren and Spooner put their side in a good position before Rhodes bowled Spooner. The effect of the heavy roller made the wicket quite easy again. . . The constant drizzle of rain, which kept on for a long time, hampered our bowlers con­ siderably. J. T u n n ic liff e . M r . Abe B a ile y , of Johannesburg, who sent the last South African team to England, has offered a sum of £150 to the Transvaal Cricket Union for the engage­ ment of a professional cricketer to coach the students of the various schools and colleges of Johannesburg. This generous offer, it goes without saying, was accepted, and a sub-committee meeting appointed at a meeting of the Transvaal Cricket Union is to confer with the school principals on the subject. T h ere seems to be a chance that the Australian cricketers may stop in Western Australia on their journey homeward with the object of playing a few matches there. The Western Australian Cricket Association, at the commencement of last month, was considering a reply to the following letter sent by the Australian manager from London under date of May 23rd :— “ Some time ago you wrote me asking whether there is any chance of the Australian cricket team playing a series of matches in Western Australia on the return from Eng­ land in October next, and, if so, what terms I should suggest as the basis of negotiations. I am now in a position to reply. We could rnmain in Western Australia about a fort­ night, the length of time between one Orient steamer and the next, and play about three or four two-day matches in, say, Perth, Kal- goorlie and Boulder. We are willing to accept for each game either a guaranteed lump sum, or a percentage of the gross receipts; or a combination of both. Would you kindly state what you are prepared to give?” L iv y W a lk e r , who captained the Surrey eleven in 1903, has just reached Shanghai, where he is to be/loniiciled for a time. He ought to be able to get a little cricket to keep his hand in. T h ough little has seen the light of print anent the visit of the English team to South Africa under the auspices of the Marylebone Club, the man in the street gets hold of occasional scraps of informa­ tion. The names of several players who have been advised to hold themselves in readiness for the tour have been freely mentioned, among them those of two well-known Surrey cricketers. O n the other side the arrangements seem to be maturing rapidly as well as successfully. A tentative fixture list has already been drawn up by the com­ mittee of the South African Association, which was to come before that Associa­ tion early last month. According to this the team will land on December 5th, at Cape Town, where they will play the first match on December 9th, 11th and 12th. Two other games will take place at Cape Town before journeying to Johannesburg, where they are to arrive on December 20. A fter four matches there, including one with Pretoria and one with Middle-