Cricket 1905

C R IC K E T , A W E E K LY REOORD OP T H E GAM E, AUG. 1 7 , 1 9 0 5 . ^ i ' ")J©|r .. > — ■ 4-... jg p i | | § | '/ ? f C O A l \ ^ rC J A & 1 Jk j O D K W u — — ttefc — ____ j — —€ i z d j ©8 c z 3 - h e i l S B S f “ Together joined in Cricket’s manly toil.”— Byron. w o 701 . v o l . xxiv. THURSDAY, AUG. 1 7 , 1 9 0 5 . p r i c e , ad. A CHAT ABOUT MB. J. E. MASON. It is pretty certain that no cricketer who has never played in a Test match in England has had his claims more widely advocated in the Press than Mr. Mason. His admirers are numerous and stead­ fast, and, whenever an Australian team visits England, they are ready to prove that no English team can be complete without him. But it has been his mis­ fortune to meet with unsympathetic selection committees and accord­ ingly his name has never appeared among the chosen few. For some reason or other, an im­ pression seems to have gained ground that, fine cricketer that he is, he is not a man for a great occasion. It may be that his frequent failures when he went with Mr. Stod- dart’s team to Australia in 1897-8 have given rise to this opinion, and it is certain that, although towards the end of lie tour he regained much of his old form, he returned to England with a repu­ tation which had suffered considerably by the visit. He played in all the five Test matches, but only managed to score 129 runs in them, and was even beaten in the Test match averages by Tom Richardson, J. T. Heame alone being below him. Nor did he meet with success in bowling in the Test matches, and as in recent years a man who plays in Test matches is judged almost entirely by his success or want of success in them, an entirely wrong opinion is often formed of his merits. There can be very little doubt that it was owing to Mr. Mason’s many failures dur­ ing this tour that, although he met with some great successes, his claims to play for England at home were never very seriously considered. Several times he has represented the Gentlemen against the Flayers, but although he has made two or three fine scores in these matches, it has not been his good fortune to dis­ tinguish himself greatly in them on the whole. Yet for season after season he has been the best all-round man in the Kent eleven, and those who know him best are convinced that his inability to do himself justice in representative matches was due entirely to sheer bad luck and not to nervousness or want of skill. (From a by Messrs. Hawkins <5j- C o ., Brighton), It was in 1893 that Mr. Mason first played for Kent. He had greatly dis­ tinguished himself at Winchester College both as a batsman and a bowler, and even at the present day his prowess as a schoolboy is spoken of with enthusiasm at his old school. As soon as the term was over he went straight into county cricket, and ended the first-class season second in the Kent batting averages, with 27-7 for eleven oompleted innings and a total of 304. Of his first appear­ ance for Kent, “ Wisden ” of 1894 says, “ Kent were most fortunate in discover­ ing a young player of exceptional pro­ mise in Mr. J. B. Mason, the Winchester captain. It was trying him very highly to bring him straight from a public school into first-class cricket, but he fully justified the high hopes entertained of him, and should have a great career before him. He plays in beautiful style, and on most admirable methods, giving evidence of thoroughly sound teaching, and, moreover, he has the advantage of p o s s e s s i n g unbounded confidence. In addition to his merits as a bats­ man, he is a capital field and a useful change bowler, with a style some­ what resembling that of George Lohmann. How­ ever, as he is quite likely to become the chief run- getter in the eleven, Kent will do well not to over­ work him as a bowler.” In his third year in the Kent team (1896), Mr. Mason made over a thou­ sand runs during the Beason, with an average of 29'18, and from that time until 1903, when he was able to play very little cricket, he always had an average of over 30, and always scored over a thousand runs. His best year was 1900, when he made 1,828 runs during the season, with an average of 63*76; he was fifth in the list, and was only beaten by Ran­ jitsinhji, C. B. Fry, Abel and Hayward. He was also well up in the bowling averages, with 86 wickets at 19'61 runs per wicket. As he was bom in 1874 heis still young, and it is quite on the cards that he may yet be seen playing in the Test matches in England. During tbe last three years he has not been able to play regularly in first-class cricket owing to business duties, but he still holds his own easily.