Cricket 1906

84 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. A p r i l 26, 1906. lriL u i i m i u u v / ■ ii im u u . COM PLETE S P O R T S CATALOGUE ON APPLICATION. B U S S E Y ’S c%csHs BUSBY’S ATALOCUtD»AfWJCATIOII r FOOTBALLS IPWOVEDWAKE- KEEPTHElRSHAPE•LASTIQNCER h y | r i ? / g E ^ 'S T i e K .s l r * HIGH CRAPE ^ M E R j S S j M i*— - — ■ .. . . m GEO. G. BDSSEY & CO, 86 & 38, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET , L O N D O N . Manufactory—PECKHAM, S.E. |TIMBER HILLS— E LM SW E L L , SU FFO LK . AGENTS ALL OVER THE WORLD AT THE SIGN OF THE WICKET, By F. S. A sh lby -C oopbb . CRICKET BATS. ( Continued from page 67). Bats of perfect workmanship can nowadays be so readily obtained at a reasonable cost that we seldom hear of a player manufactur­ ing his own. Mr. W. J. Lewis, of the Queensland Eleven, however, is an exception, as it has beon recorded of him that on October 15th, 1904, he scored 173 for Woolloongabba v. Nundah, at Brisbane, with one of his own make. The wood was native willow—not quite the same thing as white willow—and is supposed to be unsuited for the manufacture of bats. The late H. H. Stephenson ueeito relate how, in one of the U.S.E.E. matches against a XXII. in Surrey, one of the locals played with a bat of his own manufacture, explaining, when he appeared at the wicket with it, that it suited his style of play better than any that could be bought. As the pla\er remained in for over two hours for five runs, all made off his right thumb, the Eleven naturally wondered what form he would have shown hid he wielded an ordinary bat. The greatest number of bats made from a willow tree is 1179 from one which was planted at Bore- ham, in Essex, in 1835, and taken down on April 19th, 1888: when cut down it measured 101 feet long, 5 feet 9 inches in diameter, and weighed over eleven tons. The averagenumberobtained from asingletree is about 200. As tending to show how great a quantity of willow is necessary for bat- making. it may be stated that one manufac­ turer—Wisden, of Cranbourn Street—alone has 25,000 bats in stock at the end of each February. By noticing such a fact as this, one can readily understand how popular the game has become. Nowadays every player possesses a bat of his own, which was cer­ tainly far from being the case until well within recent times. It has been recorded that, in a match played on the ice by the Sheffield Club in January, 1826, one of the bats broke, and, as another could not be procured to replace it, the players had to give up the double-wicket game and take to single-wicket. Bats were luxuries in those days. Until about the year 1840 the length of the bat was not restricted, whilst now, although the law allows a limit of 38 inches, the average length is about 35, the blade being 22 and the handle 12J or 13. The weight, which can be as much or as little as desired, averages about 2 lbs. 2 ozs., but big hitters generally prefer a heavier bat, e.g., Albert Trott wields one weighing as much as 2 lbs. 10 ozs.—a weapon which A. E. Knight aptly terms “ a savage beast of a thing.” The Hon. Robert Grimston, when batting against a side to which Mr. Alfred Mynu belonged, always took two bats in with him— the heavier one to meet Mynn’s attack with, and the one o£ ordinary weight to oppose the rest of the bowling. The splice was intro­ duced between 50 and 60 years ago, about which time whalebone was often found inserted in the handle to increase the driving power. ( Bell of March 19th, 1843, in “ Answers to Correspondents,” stated that “ i'pring - handled bats are allowed.” ) Messrs. E. J. Page and Co. in 1880 patented the rubber handle cover for bats, and were one of the earliest firms to insert rubber in the handle in order to diminish sting. Although practically all modem bats are made of willow—the salix of Linnasvfls—one occasionally comes across one manufactured of some other kind of wood. The late Duke of Clarence, for example, had one made of walnut, and mounted in silver, for which ha paid £50, whilst it is a well-established fact that the first hundred hit in South Australia was made with a cherry-wood bat. Of Curious bats one could give several examples. There is, for instance, in existence one made from a willow grown from a cutting taken from a tree which stood near Napoleon’s grave at St. Helena. Wide bats, containing a trap-door, throughwhich the ball disappears, aro occasionally seen used in charity matches. In September, 1875, a curious match was played at Bishop Auckland, between M. Brown and W . Peirs, the former staking £20 to £10 that the latter could not bowl him out in twelve hours, and the arrangement being that Brown should find his own bat and Piers his own ball. On the day of the match Brown produced a bat ten inches in width, which completely hid the wicket, whilst Piers had a pot-share ball weighing 27 ozs., as used in bowling matches. The latter commenced the attack with his ponderous ball with such effect that, in a short time, the bat began to show Bigns of being splintered. At length, by some accident, Brown left one stump uncovered, and the ball, coming straight, disturbed the wicket, Piers thus proving successful in nine minutes and a- half. Of the justly-famous Mr. William Ward it has been told that, on more than one occasion, when playing a single-wicket match, he would handicap himself by playing with a walking-stick, whilst allowing his oppo­ nent the use of an ordinary bat. This recalls to mind the fact that, in about the year 1860, there was at Wesley College, Sheffield, a student named Ford— “ Bessie” Ford he was called—who was so expert a batsman that he was always made to use a baton in lieu of a bat. In August, 1816, a single­ wicket match took place near Godalming, one player making 17 in just over two hours with a brush, and the other 23 not out in about two hours with a bat, which then broke, and brought the game to an end. A New South Wales cricketer, named Tunks, who *ras Mayor of St. Leonards (N.S.W.) for eighteen consecutive years, was a big, powerful man, and used a bat with an iron handle. (In this connection it may be men­ tioned that in Bell's Life of May 10th, 1840, “ One of the Somerton Eleven” described a new bat invented by a cutler at Salisbury, who inserted a bar of steel in the middle of the handle. It was claimed that the ball could be thereby driven a very great dis­ tance). A few followers of the game have had a bat covered with the autographs of famous players, and, when all the available space, bothonthebackand front, hasbeenoccu­ pied, have had the bat varnished and polished. Probably the best specimens in existence of such bats are those owned by Mr. A. W. Shelton, of Nottington, Mr. C. F. Adamson, the Old Carthusian, and Mr. J. J. Reid, of the Oval. At Wisden’s, iu Cranbourn Street, is a splendid collection of historic bats which the proprietor, Mr. Harry Luff, is always willing to show to anybody interested in cricket. Mr. Charles Pratt Green, too, of Great Malvern, possesses well over 100 bats with a history, whilst at Putney several similar ones can be seen. Reference to these collections makes one ask, ‘ ‘ Why should not a batsman, when he has played a great innings, present his bat to the M.C.C., so that it should have an abiding-place at the head* quarters of the game?” In this manner an unrivalled collection could easily be formed, and doubtless the powers-that-be at Lord’s would gladly consent to the proposal if it were made to them. The Club has, in past years, so