Cricket 1906

J an . 25, 1906. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 11 were drawn the match had been won and the score was 191 for four wickets. Doming also took nine wickets for 56 runs. K. E. C ooper has made more than a thousand runs this season for Bangalore, a feat which has been very seldom per­ formed. E. H. D. Sewell is one of the few men who have made over a thousand runs in a Beason for the club. W. W. L owe , the old Malvernian and Cambridge Blue of 1895, won the Public Schools Winter Sports Challenge Cup at Klosters on January 4th, for skating, tobogganing and ski-running. Lowe, who also played cricket for Worcester­ shire, has now won the cup for three years in succession and it becomes his own property. T he name of F. C. Cubden, the old Harrovian and Cambridge Blue, is re­ called by an advertisement which recently appeared in a contemporary. Mr. Cob- den has for many years been proprietor of the Capel Curig Hotel near Bettws-y- Coed, and he is advertising 12,000 acres of shooting land. It will be remembered that in the University match of 1870 be took the last three Oxford wickets with successive balls when only three runs were required to win. VoGLER, the South African M.C.C. professional, has met with great success this season for Port Elizabeth. Against the Union C.C. he took eight wickets for 95, against Albany eight for 22, and against Uitenhage seven for 29. He also scored 86 against Uitenhage. W alter L ees , the Surrey bowler, has chosen the match between Surrey and Yorkshire at the Oval on July 26 :h, etc., for his benefit. E nglish cricketers, impressed by Darling’s management of Armstrong’s bowling, have hitherto been under the impression that the Australians played for a draw in each of the first four test matches. It seems that this is a great mistake, and that it was the Englishmen who played for a draw. For Laver, the Australian manager, when interviewed at Melbourne after his return, said, “ The lnck seemed to be against us from the time Victor Trumper ricked himself. The English cricketers won the toss on a good wicket, and wouldn’t take any risks. If the matches were played out most of them wouldn’t take more than three days, but often they were played for a draw from the commencement.” C ases of hard luck are common enough in cricket, but I should doubt whether many cricketers could give a parallel to the following instance, about which an Australian cricketer writes to me “ Three years ago the Double Bay Club at Sydney (M. A. Noble’s old club) made an excursion into the country, playing a club at Blacktown, sixty miles away. William McDowell^ a contemporary of Noble in the club, and a man who but for sheer bad luck would have come to the front, accompanied us. I was bowling on an asphalt wicket. Oil tbe first ball of my first over short-slip missed a catch; the wicket-keeper missed a case of stumping off the second ; I failed to hold a return off the third; the batsman played the fourth; mid-on missed him off the fifth, and McDowell, in attempting to catch him at mid-off off the last ball of the over, fell and broke his collar-bone. That was at the beginning of October. Towards the end of December McDowell played with us again, and carried his bat through the innings for 17, batting practically with one hand. A substitute who fielded for him had to leave early. McDowell came out, and immediately a ball was skied to him. He missed the catch, and his left hand was split between the fingers right to the centre of the hand. He never played with us any more.” M r . J. C. D avis , the well-known Australian critic (“ Not Out” of the Sydney Referee ) was very ill with pleurisy in the autumn, but at the end of October he had practically recovered his health. T. D. K illick , of Staten Island, who won the bowling average in the Metro­ politan District Cricket League of New York, played for Bepton in 1900. H. B. B ichardson , the old Surrey player, represented the San Francisco County Club in the California Cricket Association Championship, and had the following batting average :— No. Times Most of not in an Total inns. out. inns. runs. Average. 12 ... 7 ... 96*... 626 ... 125 20 He also led in bowling in his club : — Balls. Mdns. Runs. Wkts. Average. 518 ... 15 228 ... 27 ... 8'4 S c e n e , a polling room. British electors voting for the millennium and the Big Loaf. First voter: “ Wot’s this abaht oldW.G. plyin’ for Glo’ster agine ? ” Second voter: “ Dunno. Somefing to do wiv some fool game or uvver—golf or somefing.” First voter: “ Wonder why the old man never put up for Parliment ! ” Second voter : “ Strewth. I ’d ’ave voted for ’im if ’e’d put up ’ere.” First voter : “ So’d I, blimy. But ’e didn’t. Let’s go rahnd to the Bird and Byby. Votin’s dry work.” R eferring to a golf match at North- wood last week, A. C. M. Croome, the old Oxford Blue, says in the Evening Standard :— Dr. W. G. Grace was in his most cheerful mood during the journey from Baker Street. He was fresh from Sunningdale, where he had played a wonderful shot with a niblick, out of the pond by the fifth green. The ball struck the bank of the pond as it rose, and “ W.G.” seeing that the occasion called for desperate measures, had a second go at it while it was in the air, and laid it dead at the hole side. Mr. Beldam produced a photo­ graph of the first part of the stroke and “ W .G .” showed us how the second half was done, with the result that he nearly took the nose off a valued member of our side. A t the annual meeting of the Wiltshire County C.C. at Trowbridge, it was stated that the balance-sheet showed a deficit of £427 13s. 51., but that thj retiring president, Mr. A. Grantmeek, had given £100 towards clearing off the debt. Mr. Herbert Harris was elected president, and Mr. A. M. Miller is again honorary secretary and captain. I n the Australasian of Dacembar 9th pictures ara given of the front elevation of the new members’ pavilion and new stand in the members’ reserve on the ground of the Melbourne C.C. The members’ pavilion will be 165 ft. long, 50 ft. deep, and 80 ft. to the top of the roof. It is to bs constructed of steel, with red, white and black bricks. It must be con­ fessed that in the pictures the new build­ ings do not seem to look imposing or to offer many attractions from an artistic point of view, but it is hardly possible to judge from an architect’s “ front elevation.” N ew S outh W ales scored 805 against Victoria at the end of December. Some notes on this match and on other inter­ state matches will be found on another page. The highest scores in first-class cricket are as follows : — 918—New South Wales v. South Australia, Sydney, January, 1901. 887—Yorkshire v. Warwickshire, Birmingham, May. 1896. 843—Australians v. Oxford and Cambridge Past and Present, Portsmouth, July, 1893. 811—Surrey v. Somerset, the Oval, May, 1899. 807—New South Wales v. South Australia, Adelaide, December, 1899. 805—New South Wales v. Victoria, Melbourne, December, 1905. 803 (9 wkts)—Non-Smokers v. Smokers, East Mel­ bourne, March, 1887. 801—Lancashire v. Somerset, Taunton, July, 1895. A D iamond , who scored 164 (retired) for New South Wales v. South Australia, is the only batsman except L. O. S. Poidevin who has made a hundred on his first appearance in the series of matches between the two States. He is said to hit with power and to be good on the leg side, but is not at his best against slow bowling. The Ceylon team which visited Madras at Chiistmas did not give a very good account of itself, and in two or three matches its opponents scored largely. In the match against Madras Presidency, Ceylon scored 218 and 86 and Madras 451 for five wickets, three men making hundreds. The first wicket put up 191 runs. The Madras score is as follows :— M adras P residency . First innings. F. W. Partridge, c Balkwill, b Brownell 170 J. T. Gwynn, b Faviell...............................103 F. D. Wilson, b Brownell ........................ 3 K. E. Cooper, c Wright, b Brownell ... 19 Capt.J.H.Brunskill, c Waldock,b Paterson 116 Major Dewing, not ou t...............................15 Extras ...................................... 25 Total (for five wickets) 451 Just as Cricket is going to press the news has reached me that Mr. A. J. W ilk in s o D , the old Yorkshire and Middle­ sex cricketer, died on December 11th, in his seventieth year.