Cricket 1905

A ug . 17, 1905. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME 345 land match at Manchester and had the worst of the drawn games against England at Leeds and the Oval, they have always had the best of the game. July 3-5, v. England' (Leeds), drawn greatly in favour of England. „ 6-8, v. Hampshire, won by an innings and 112 runs. „ 10-12, v. Derbyshire, won by 105 runs. „ 13-15, v. Somersetshire, drawn in their favour. „ 17-19, v. Scotland, drawn in their favour. „ 20-21, v. Fifteen of Scotland. Drawn in their favour. „ 24-26, v. England (Manchester), lost by an innings and 80 runs. „ 27-29, v. Surrey, won by 22 runs. July 31 to August 2, v. Sussex, won by an innings ana 76 runs. August 3-5, v. Worcestershire, drawn greatly in their favour. „ 7-9, v. South Wales, drawn greatly in their favour. „ 10-12, v. Middlesex, won by 132 runs. „ 13-15, v. England, drawn in favour of England. T he following men have played for England in this year’s test matches :— ALL FIVE MATOHES. At At At At At Nottnghm. Lord’s. Leeds. Manchstr. Oval. Jackson Jackson Jackson Jackson Jackson Hayward Hayward Hayward Hayward Hayward Tyldesley Tyldesley Tyldesley Tyldesley Tyldesley Lilley Lilley Lilley Lilley Lilley FOUR MATOHES. Bos’nqu’t Bos’nqu’t Bos’nqu’t — — Rhodes Rhodes — Rhodes Rhodes Arnold Arnold — Arnold Arnold Maclaren Maclaren — Maclaren Maclaren — Fry Fry Fry Fry THREE MATOHES. Jones Jones — — — — Haigh Haigh — — — — Hirst Hirst Hirst TWO MATOHES. — — — Spooner Spooner — — — Brearley Brearley ONE MATCH. Jessop — Denton — — J.Gunn - - Warren — — — — Blythe — — I n comparison with the above, it may be interesting to recall the names of the men who played in the teat matches in 1902. They are as follows :— All five matches: A. O. Maclaren, F. S. Jackson, Tyldesley, Lilley, Braund, and Rhodes. Four matches: Hirst, G. L. Jessop and Lockwood. Three matches: O. B. Fry and K. S. Ranjitsinhji. Two matches: Abel and L. O. H. Palairet. One match: Barnes, Tate and Hayward. I t will be noticed that Jackson, Tyldes­ ley and Lilley played in all fiye matches in both years. Maclaren and Rhodes only missed the honour through unavoid­ able causes—the former through illness, and the latter through an injury to his thumb. The new men are Brearley, Spooner, Warren, Arnold, Bosanquet, Jones, Haigh, Denton, Blythe, and J. Qunn, but most of them have only played in one match. The men who were dropped this year have all, except Braund, Tate and Ranjitsinhji, practically retired from first-class cricket, v iz.: Lockwood, Abel, Palairet and Barnes, while Ranjit­ sinhji has been away from England all the season. O f the fourteen men who formed the M.C.C. Australian team six have played in each of the Test matches except the third. Bosanquet, Hayward, Tyldesley, Lilley, Rhodes and Arnold played in the first two matches. In the third match Hirst came in and Rhodes and Arnold went ou t; in the fourth and fifth matches Rhodes and Arnold came in again and Bosanquet went out. T h e system of playing five test matches originated in 1899, and the only man who has played in the fifteen which have taken place since then is the Hon. F. S. Jackson. Lilley has played in 14, A. C. Maclaren in 13, C. B. Fry and Rhodes in 12, and Hayward in 11. In the Evening News Albert E. Trott says:— “ Noble puts up a diplomatic smile if you hint Cotter is a failure—if it is such to take over eighty wickets ! ” Unfortunately it is, if you expect a man to rival the performances of Spofforth, and to help you to win more of the test matches than your opponents. Cotter came to England with a reputation, hardly of his own making, greater than that of any other bowler who ever made his first appearance with an Australian team. He is a failure only because his too enthusiastic friends presented him with a reputation up to which he has not yet been able to live, although he bowled wonderfully well at the Oval on Monday and Tuesday. A co rre s p o n d e n t writes: “ In the Sportsman on Saturday I read that ‘ When two runs were needed both Tunnicliffe and Rhodes were caught, the last-named also losing possession of his bat from the stroke that returned the ball to the bowler.’ Now what I want to know is this: Suppose that in this case the bat had travelled to the bowler and caught him, say on the nose, just as he was about to make the catch, which he would then naturally drop, would Rhodes have been out for obstructing the field?” Law 26 says : “ Or, if under pretence of running, or otherwise, either of the bats­ men wilfully prevent a ball from being caught.” I imagine, therefore, that in such a case the umpire would decide that the batsman did not wilfully prevent the ball from being caught. A t last, by his innings of 144 at the Oval, C. B. Fry has proved most con­ clusively that in a test match he is in his right place. He has proved this before, but not to the satisfaction of everybody, although it is hard to under­ stand why a demand should have been made that he should be left out of the fifth test match after making scores of 73, 36 not out, 32, 30, and 17. But he has only himself to blame for the adverse criticism which has been passed upon his play in Australian matches, for he has been judged by his own standard. The worst of setting yourself an exceedingly high standard is that unless you live up to it ever afterwards you are accounted a fraud. V ic t o r Thumper has suffered even more than Fry because of the standard which he has set himself. An ordinary batsman who makes nearly 1,400 runs before the middle of August is heartily patted on the back, but Trumper is not an ordinary batsman. Hence, by compari­ son with himself, he is naturally re­ garded this year by the world as a failure. Perhaps, if there had never been a W. G., these comparisons of cricketers with themselves would never have been made, but it is remembered that when he was in his prime W. G. was always “ there or thereabouts.” O n Monday one of the evening papers announced on its contents bill HAYWARD ’S M I S F O R T U N E . Naturally one expected to find that some­ thing dreadful had happened to Hay­ ward—at the very least that in some sad way he had been dismissed for a duck’s egg in the test match. But it turned out that the “ misfortune” was not so bad after all. Hayward had made 59, and then, misjudging his dis­ tance, stepped on the wicket when trying to hit a short ball to leg. M r. A. J. G a ston writes from Brigh­ ton : “ I shall esteem it a favour if you will kindly supplement my remarks re the four brothers Grace and the four brothers Foster participating together in a county match, which appeared in Cricket in last week’s ‘ Pavilion Gossip,’ p. 331, the follow ing: Five of the famous Walker brotherhood, viz., ‘ John,’ ‘ Alfred,’ ‘ Arthur Henry,’ ‘ Frederick,’ and ‘ Vyell Edward’ played for Middle­ sex against Kent on Mr. John Walker’s charming ground at Southgate on June 16th and 17th, 1859, Middlesex winning by 78 runs. Four brothers Steel, viz., ‘ A. G .,’ ‘ D. Q .,’ ‘ H. B .,’ and ‘ E. E .,’ played for Lancashire against Surrey at Liverpool on July 17th and 18th, 1884.” R. E. F o s t e r has played very little first-class cricket this year, but he has shown that he is as good a batsman as he ever was. He reappeared in the Worcestershire team on July 31st against Kent at Worcester, and scored 246 not ou t; against the Australians on a terrible wicket he made 31 (the highest score on his side) and 4 ; against Warwickshire 2 and 15 ; and against Somerset 93 and 99 not out, thus only just missing the honour of scoring two separate hundreds in the match, a feat which he had already performed three times. Thus in a fort­ night’s cricket he scored 490 runs for five completed innings. In the first innings of Middlesex against the Australians at Lord’s, on Friday, P. F. Warner and Tarrant made 102 runs between them. There were 20 extras, so that, as the Middlesex total was 145, the other nine men accounted for 23 runs only. I t is not often that a professional distinguishes himself in his benefit match, but Knight, Thompson and Huish all did well in their matches at the end of last week. At Leicester Knight scored 96, Huish at the wicket disposed of three |Lancashire men at Canterbury, and only