Cricket 1906

A ug 30, 1906. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 377 T h e Surrey captain has had such a run o f bad luck ju st lately that his s p a rk liD g innings o f 86 at the Oval on Tuesday wa9 the m ore appreciated. H e had one experience that fulls to the lot o f few batsmen. A ball from P u rdy, w ho bow led exceedin gly w ell and at quite his best p ice , h it the side o f the le g stump w ithout rem oving the bails. Instead o f a wicket the result was a credit note of four byes, the ball travelling in hot haste to the boundary. A w e l l - k n o w n cricket personality h as been rem oved b y th e death o f M r. J . A . Bur.tery, t h e sporting editor o f the D aily Mail. A part from his professional iu - T arran t (M id d le se x ). terests he was a keen supporter o f cricket and football, as I can vouch from a close acquaintance and active association. As a journalist he was fu ll o f resource with an infinite capacity for w ork, and he w ill be greatly missed, not only in his ow n special line, bu t on m ost o f our principal cricket grounds, where he was very popular. It is only a fortn igh t or so ago that I saw him at the Oval. H e died as the result o f an operation last Thursday. I n entertaining the W ynyard and Silksw orth teams at his seat, W ynyard Park, Stockton, on M onday, L ord L ondonderry said, plaintively, that as a grandfather he found the wickets terribly Philadelphians in their first knock for a total o f 68, a success fo r w hich they were m ainly indebted to H . R ushton, w ho dismissed six o f them in sixty-th ree balls fo r on ly 21 runs. In the second ‘ ‘ hands ” P hiladelphia scored 198, and w ould have w on easily bad time allow ed as N ew Y o rk had eight wickets dow n iu the fourth innings fo r 43. The N ew Y o rk tide, I see, included A . J . G rant-C ook, w ho played a g o o d deal fo r the Surrey C lub ten years or so a g o. A notable feature o f the match, in addition to the b ow lin g o f J . A . Lester, was the w icket-keepin g of C. H . W in ter fo r Philadelphia. H e stumped three men in N ew Y o rk ’ s first innings and one in the B econ d . E . C. R e a d e , w h o was one o f the few small successes on the Canadian side in the recent International match w ith the U nited States at Manheitn l“ st m onth, w ill be up at O xford University n ext year, having been elected to a R hodes’ Scholarship from the U niver­ sity o f T oron to. Another C olonial cricketer w ho has gained a R hodes’ Scholarship is on his w ay to E ngland. This is the y ou n g V ictorian, A rnold Seitz, w h o was presented w ith a handsom e travelling b a g by fellow m embers o f the East M elbourne Club on the eve of his departure for E ngland. T h e habitues o f the Surrey Cricket G round have n ot seen better h ittin g this season than E . L ee provided for them at the O val last F riday. The match was Surrey C lub and G round v. the B orou gh o f S outh­ w ark C lub, and Lee, w h o w ent in first fo r the latter, m ade 96 o f 150 runs for nine wickets. H e is a left-h anded bat, w ith p len ty o f strokes, and is, in addition, an excellent w icket­ keeper. I t is not often, fortunately, that a first-class m atch can boast such a chapter o f accidents as that betw een Surrey and D erbyshire, concluded at the O val yesterday. T o start w ith, H allam , o f D erbyshire, was ill, and th ou gh an attem pt was made to replace him he had to g o in to bat as Surrey had lost the toss. O n the second m orn ing it was fou nd that B estw ick was suffering from a bad throat. A s he was unable to take the field tw o substitutes had to be found in N ice and Davis. H ayes, w ho had received a nasty blow on his knee-cap overnight, was so lame that he had to have som eone to run fo r him , and though L o rd D alm eny made 86 he also had injured his leg so much that he had to leave the field in the course o f D erby­ shire’s second innings. D u rin g the greater part o f Tuesday there were tw o, and yesterday three, substitutes in the field. lon g w hen he ran and terribly short when he batted. M anly sports, he added, b rin g out those characteristics of courage and tenacity which have made E ngland the great nation she is. I t is to be feared that the great success o f M cG abey w ith the ba ll on F riday last at L ayton , when he took seven wickets fo r 27 runs, was rather due to the w ay in which m ost o f the batsmen rushed to their slaughter than to any great skill on the part o f the bow ler. One of M cG ahey’s victim s stepped in fron t of his w icket and tried to pull a half volley, tw o o f them were stumped through rushing w ild ly out, tw o tried to hit him and, after failing, left him alone fo r a time, then tried again to hit him and succeeded on ly too w ell. A c o r r e s p o n d e n t , w riting to a contem porary on the sub­ je ct o f the m ost healthful exercise, states that walking undoubtedly comes firs1. F or nature, he says, teaches the baby to walk, not to play cricket and other games. H e forgets that nature first teaches the baby to craw l, unless squalling m ay be considered a form o f exercise. O ne o f the best catches in the E ssex v. N otts m atch at L eyton was m ade b y A . O. Jones in fron t o f the pavilion on the first day. Y e t it looked simple enough, for as a spectator in the rin g tru ly observed, “ It went strite into ’is bloom in ’ ’and s.” B u t the catch required a lot o f ju d g in g , and the ball, besides travelling low , was driven very hard. O n M onday, after his innings o f 111 fo r Y orkshire against Somerset at Bath, G eorge H irst required on ly 52 runs and six­ teen w ickets to create a new record viz., to score 2,000 runs and take 200 w icksts in the course o f a season. There are three m ore matches in w h ich he is to p lay this season. O n m any cou n ty grounds the attend­ ances thiB year have been much larger than usual, and the probability is that the comm ittees w ill attribute the increase to a renew ed interest in coun ty cricket. But it m ay be that this renewed interest is m ore apparent than real, and that the extrem ely fine w eather is solely respon­ sible fo r larger attendances. P eople who will cheerfully plank dow n tbeir six­ pences if they feel certain that they can bask in the sun all day, w ill think many times before they launch out into extrava­ gance if the day is cold and wet. A t a general comm ittee m eeting in connection w ith the testimonial to A . A .