Cricket 1905

S ept . 14, 1905, CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME 4 l l T h e team of Young Surrey Players to oppose the Croydon Amateurs at Mitcham on September 23rd, for the benefit of Tom Sherman, will be selected from the following:—F. Stedman, P. C. Holland, W. Davis, M. Jackson, C. Butler, J. Kindsland, W. C. Smith, J . B. Hobbs, W. Lockwood, T. Palmer, A. Batt, D. Turner, and H. Strudwick. W it h regard to the above match, it may be noted that whereas “ Wisden ” gives the date of Tom Sherman’s birth as December 1st, 1827, it appears on the notice of Sherman’s benefit as December 1st, 1825. I have before me a newspaper report of a match played at Mitcham on August 31st, 1828 between Mitcham and Kennington, in which two Shermans appear—John and W.—for the former club, as well as Tom Hayward and Tom Sewell. In the second innings of Ken­ nington five wickets fell for no runs. At that date Mitcham issued a challenge in Bell's Life'. “ Mitcham is prepared to play any Parish within twenty miles of London.” L okd A lveh ston e , the president of the Surrey County C.C., has consented to become president of the London Foot­ ball Charity Committee in place of the late Sir Reginald Hanson. In an interview in the Sportsman, Darling, the Australian captain, says, with regard to the proposed Australian Board of Control, whose troubles have been fully explained in Cricket :— As far as I know, the trouble is brought about by those who desire to undertake the government of the game having ambition but no practical experience as' cricketers. You have probably formed a pretty fair notion of what I mean from perusal of the Australian newspapers. Mistakes are always being made that create feeling and could have easily been avoided. An Australian Board of Control would be a very excellent ideaif the delegates were thoroughly capable men, possessing the confidence of the cricket community and ready to sink inter-state jealousies. Further, there must be no desire to “ throw over ” the Melbourne Cricket Club, which has worked hard and taken risks in the past over these International visits. And it is felt that the claims of the cricketers themselves should not be altogether overlooked. Terrible blunders have been made in the past which would have been avoided had the representation now asked for on the Council been allowed the players. There was, as you are doubtless aware, a Cricket Council, but it accomplished nothing of a beneficial character and soon suffered dissolution. Any new body must be on more acceptable lines. I t has always seemed a pity that Australian teams should be judged chiefly by the number of matches which they lose instead of by their victories, but it was perhaps inevitable that this should be. The Australians themselves have tacitly accepted the situation, and in the above interview it is stated that “ the Colonial shipper pointed with natural pleasure to the results attained outside the Test matches. They had drawn more games than in 1902, but had, as then, only lost one fixture. Yorkshire were then successful at Leeds; now Essex had gained the verdict at Leyton.” TH E A U S T R A L IAN S OF 1905. The most noticeable point about the tour of 1905 is not so much that the Australians failed to score a single point in the Test matches, but that they seemed incapable of doing themselves justice unless they batted first. During the tour of thirty-eight matches they had to go in second in seventeen, of which they only won four—-against Northampton­ shire, Warwickshire, the scratch England X I. at Bournemouth, and the Gentlemen of England at Lord’s. On the other hand, they went in first twenty-one times, and won twelve of the matches. It is to be feared that they must be dis­ appointed with the results of their tour, for their record will not stand compari­ son with that of many previous teams. Altogether they won sixteen matches out of thirty-eight, but only six of them were against teams which could reason­ ably be considered strong, viz., York­ shire, Lancashire (Manchester), Gentle­ men of England (Lord’s), Sussex, Kent, and Warwickshire. For the rest, there were three victories over Universities (Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin), four over counties which are in the last six in the championship table, two over strong counties who left out several of their best players in the return match, viz., Surrey and Lancashire (Aigburth), and one over the scratch England X I. at Bournemouth. But, as I have often pointed out, an Australian team is judged partly by its success in the test matches, and partly by the number of matches which it loses— one never by any chance hears that any particular Australian team was more successful than others because it won more matches. On the other hand, it is a common saying that a team in such and such a year was exception­ ally good, because it was hardly ever beaten. From this point of view the present team may decidedly congratulate itself, for it has been beaten but three times, by England (twice) and Essex. Nor has it had many narrow escapes of defeat. Iu fact it had the best of the game in all its matches except those against England (five), Essex, and York­ shire at Bradford. Unfortunately the inability to get the pull over England even in o n 9 of the test matches over­ whelms every other consideration in the opinion of the man in the street. Much sympathy hasbeen expressed with theAustralians for losing the toss in all the test matches, but it is at least a question whether it was of any advantage to England to win the toss at Nottingham, Leeds and Manchester, for in each of these matches the wicket was better when the Australians were batting than at any other period of the game. When a team is stronger than another its opponents sometimes escape defeat by batting second. Thus Somerset, Glou­ cestershire (twice), Scotland, XY . of Scotland, and Worcestershire all escaped at the hands of the Australians, whereas the odds are great tbat if they had gone in first they would have each helped to swell the total of victories gained by the visitors. During the last two months the Australians in their matches against the counties had a run of luck in the way of batting first which must be unexampled. They went in first eight times in succession, and in thirteen matches they only had to bat second once. It is difficult to understand why the tour was not much more successful, for the team is very strong indeed—one might say enormously strong. Un­ doubtedly a great mistake was made in not playing Cotter right through the season, and especially right through the test matches. True, he has only recently shown anything like what must be his true form, but the Australians must have known what that true form was, and at the worst he was as good as some of the other bowlers. There was, moreover, always a fair chance that he would dis­ pose of one or two great players before they had settled down. Another great mistake was the policy of beginning to play for a draw in the first four test matches long before all hope of victory had disappeared. So many remarkable things happen at cricket that it is always worth while to play for a win until it is absolutely certain that victory is out of the question. With so much strength iu batting as the Australians possessed, anything might have been possible. It may be argued that the batting was brilliant rather than sound, but it was not the brilliancy which was at fault as much as the attempts of so many of the team to make strokes which can only be made by a great player who is at the top of his form. This would not have mattered in the very least if Trumper, Duff and Hill—or even two of them—-had played quite up to their reputation, but although they all distinguished them­ selves, they all fell below their own standard, and thus the team was handi­ capped far more than could ever have been anticipated. On the other hand, Armstrong excelled himself, but the un­ expected success of one cannot make up for the unexpected disappointment caused by three. Yet the batting was good all through the team. It is almost a question whether on this year’s form Darling was not the best bat in the team, for although his average falls below that of some of the others, he was the man who could be relied upon when times were hard. Noble seems as good as ever; he was almost the only man on the side who consistently played a patient innings. For a time Armstrong seemed likely to leave in the shade even Trumper’s record of 1902, but although he was always making runs, his great successes came in the first half of the season. He holds undisputed right to be considered the best all-round man in the team. If his