Cricket 1905

S ept . 14, 1905; CRICKETj A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 413 THE FIRST-CLASS COUNTY SEASON. (Continuedfrom page 391 .) L eic estersh ire have gone up two places this year, and they have good reason to be satisfied with their position. For although they did not succeed in beating Yorkshire, Lancashire, Surrey or Sussex— the only counties above them in the table—they won eight matches, and were only beaten five times. C. J. B. Wood has been the mainstay of the side in batting, and R. Joyce gave an exceed- ingly good account of himself. But Knight, King, V . F. S. Crawford, and C. E. De Traflord have all been a little disappointing. The bowling has been better than ever before, and Jayes has had an excellent season. R. T. Craw­ ford has been out of form this year with both bat and ball, but he is too good a player to hide his head under a bushel for long. For many years M idd lesex have always been very formidable in the month of AuguBt, during which the greater part of their matches are played. But they have fallen from their high estate thiB year. They began the season by losing to Gloucestershire and Notts. Then, after waking up and winning four matches before the end of June, they failed with surprising completeness. Not another match was won, while four were lost. On the whole, they have had a most disappointing season. They have not, for various reasons, been able to rely regularly on even one of their many amateurs, although Bosanquet, Warner and E. A. Beldam played pretty fre­ quently. Trott, who was for some years the mainstay of the side, is no longer of much use either with the bat or the ball, nor is J. T. Heafne the bowler that he was. Much was naturally expected of B. J. T. Bosanquet, but he seems to have lost all command over the ball, and his successes have been few and far between. Mignon did a brilliant performance against Surrey but absolutely nothing else. Even Tarrant was disappointing with the ball, although he was often most useful with the bat. A large num­ ber of recruits were tried, one or two of them with some persistency and success, but on the whole the outlook for the county is not by any means bright. It is a surprise to find that P. F. Warner only has an average of 39, for he has played some remarkably fine innings daring the season. Unfortunately it cannot be said that the introduction of N o rth am pton sh ire to first-class cricket has been attended with much success. Nearly all the bats­ men seemed to be overweighted by their responsibilities and their cricket suffered accordingly. In match after match there was a sad lack of enterprise, and the only man who came out with much credit was C. J. T. Pool, a player of the most steady type. Thompson did not do him­ self justice with the bat, but he bowled well, although he met with but little assistance after East was obliged to drop out of the team on account of injuries. Two matches were won out of twelve— against Derbyshire and Hampshire. In 1904 N otts were fifth in the cham­ pionship table ; this year they are tenth. Of their six victories only one was obtained over a county which is in the upper half of the table. Up to the middle of June, Notts did pretty well, but afterwards their only victims were Derbyshire. They were greatly handi­ capped by the accident to Wass, who was doing extremely well when he had to give up the game. As it was, he comes out at the head of the bowling averages. In his absence Notts were very weak with the ball, having no really good bowler to call upon after J. Gunn and Hallam. In batting, Iremonger comes out first, but A. O. Jones and J. Gunn are not far behind him. Hardstaff frequently played a most valuable inn­ ings, and G. Gunn was consistently good. The Notts team will remember the season if only for their defeat at Sheffield by Yorkshire, who, after being 61 runs behind on the first innings, put Notts in to make 167, and dismissed them for 39. The S om ersetsh ire men seem to have lost their happy trick of creating sur­ prises, but they play as cheerfully as ever, despite their want of success. The discovery of a very promising new bowler in Bailey was almost the only bright spot iu the season’s cricket. Neither in batting nor bowling has the county been able to distinguish itself. Braund has had to bear the brunt of the work with the ball, but, except on a few occasions, he was not able to do himself justice, and he is not the batsman that he was. The loss of L. C. H. Palairet was naturally a great blow to the team. The vast improvement made by S u r r e y has been the subject of general comment. With a team which is practically the same as that which failed so badly in 1904, with the exception of Hobbs, they had an excellent season, and for a long time had a reasonable chance of winning the championship. Their success has been gained by good all-round play, excellent bowling, and far better fielding than in 1904. In all probability if Sinitli had not been placed hors de combat at a critical time Surrey would have had even a better record, for in him they found just the man whom they had wanted for so long, capable of making the very best use of a slow wicket. But it was chiefly on the bowling of Lees and Knox that Surrey relied for the greater part of the year, and both men distinguished them­ selves greatly. Many good judges are of opinion that Knox was the best fast bowler of the year, and the selection committee were almost alone in thinking that Lees was not the medium-paced bowler of the season. Much had been hoped of J. N. Crawford, after his bril­ liant performances of last year, but he was a little disappointing as a bowler, although he batted surprisingly well on many (occasion s. Hayes had an excellent season with the ball, and was also in great form with the bat. As usual Hay­ ward was the mainstay of the team in batting. The occasions when he failed were indeed few, and whatever the state of the wicket might be he nearly always was to be depended on for a good score. Many sound innings were played by Baker and Holland, while Hobbs had a most promising season as a first-class cricketer. Lord Dalmeny’s brilliant hit­ ting was quite one of the features of the season. For a time Davis seemed likely to develop into a hitter of exceptional powers, but Goatly, who heads the aver­ ages, was dropped after playing five innings. As there are are several young cricketers of great promise in the county the future looks very hopeful. Lord Dalmeny has been a success as captain, and has kept the team well together. S u ssex may be congratulated on a season which turned out infinitely better than they can have anticipated when they knew that there was very little chance of receiving any assistance from Ranjitsinhji. As it was, they only lost four matches and none at all when C. B. Fry was playing for them. They gained four more victories than ever fell to the county before, and although Pry was frequently absent the rest of the team learned to rely upon themselves. One cannot help thinking that if both Fry and R&njitsinhji had been able to play regularly, Sussex would have made a very bold bid for the championship. The only thing which is not quite satis­ factory about their record is that no victories were claimed over Yorkshire, Lancashire or Surrey, but on the other hand, neither Lancashire nor Yorkshire succeeded in beating them. Fry’s average of 86 speaks for itself; he was nearly always successful, whether the wickets were bad or good. In Vine, the county has a player whose services are simply invaluable. His long partnerships with Fry have become world-famed, and in the absence of Fry he has nearly always been a stumbling-block in the way of the opposing bowlers. The two first- wicket men were most ably backed up by Relf and Killick, and on the few occasions when they were available, Young and Heygate proved themselves to be players of the highest promise. Goldie played all through the season, but although he did well he was just a little disappointing. As usual, New­ ham’s services could not be always dis­ pensed with and, as usual, he often played a most valuable innings. Iu bowling, Sussex were perhaps stronger than they have ever been. (Jox is now one of the best and most accurate left- hand bowlers in the country, and he was splendidly backed up by Relf and Kil­ lick, while Goldie, Leach and Vine were sometimes useful. There is not much doubt that if W a r ­ w ick sh ire could make runs more quickly they would win many more matches. As it is they have had a fairly successful season, and have only lost four matches, while in their drawn games they were several times deprived of victory owing to rain or want of time. As usual, Quaife was the mainstay of the team. His batting has been consistently good,