Cricket 1907

10 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. J an . 31, 1907. T h e following fifteen players have been chosen to take part in the South African Tour of next season :— T ransvaal . C. A. "Faulkner. P. W. Sherwell. O. E. Floquet. J. H. Sinclair. E. A. Haliiwell. L. J. Tancred. M. Hatliorn. A. E. Vosrier. R. O. Schwarz. G. 0. "White. \V. A. Shalders. "W estern P rovince . J. J. Kotze. | S. J. Snooke. N atal . A. D. Nourse. I Smith. T h e following remarks ia the Austra­ lasian on the subject of the Trial Match by North v. South, on the Melbourne Ground, read a little funny :— There must have been at least 50 persons in the stand and pavilion, despite the immense counter attraction at Flemington. Evidently the public pulse has been stirred in an extraordinary way by the introduction of district cricket. Let us all join in a paean of praise for district cricket. M e n tio n of this match reminds me of a peculiar incident during the innings of the Northern side. When Le Couteur, who was top scorer with 53 of 148, had made 12 he played a ball, picked it up, and threw it back to the bowler. Russ, who was keeping wicket, appealed, and the umpire, of course, gave Le Couteur out for “ handling the ball.” He was walking to the pavilion, but was allowed to resume by Rus?, and the few specta­ tors cordially applauded. T h e following anecdote of G. H. S. Trott, in bis “ Cricketers I have met,” is new to Cricket at all events : — Playing against Yorkshire, at Sheffield, in 1896,the wickets were very fiery, and almost dangerous for any fast bowler to bowl upon. So, having this in mind, we played both our fast bowlers, Eady and Jones. W e won the toss, and went in to bat. Hirst started the bowling for Yorkshire, and he was simply dangerous; the ball was flying past your nose one minute and over the head of the wicket-keeper—who was standing well back — the next, and how we managed to get 262 runs on the wicket was more through good luck than good cricket. I know that every man who made over 10 runs either gave one or two chances, and we scored very quickly too. I suppose that the fact that we had two bowlers on our side who could get as much fun out of the wicket as Hirst had been getting gave us a lot of confidence. The late J. T. Brown opened the Yorkshire innings with Tunniclifte, and the latter was imme­ diately clean bowled by a fast yorker from Jones. Little “ B obby” Moorhouse followed. Moorhouse is a right-out genuine type of the "Yorkshireman, with a pronounced dialect. The second ball “ B obby” got from Jones hit him somewhere about the ribs, and a real Y orkshire grunt escaped from him. A couple of balls later he got another on the soft part of his anatomy, and a wild Yorkshire squeal and inward mutterings were the result. In the next over from Jones “ B ob ” got another in the ribs, which bowled him over. I rushed to inquire if he was seriously hurt, and the only reply I got was a groan. I started to rub the place to ease the pain. W hile doing so, I remarked that the fast bowlers were really dangerous, and “ Bobby ” appealed to me to ‘ take t’ beggar off.’ I promised him I would. As I told him, I was afraid he would kill some one. And the following over, true to my promise, I took Jones off and substituted Eady in his place. The first couple of balls from Eady whizzed past “ Bobby’s ” nose, and the third got him areal “ snorter” in the old spot under the ribs. Moorhouse rolled over in apparently mortal agony. I went across to him again to see if he was badly hurt, and the only words I heard from him were: ‘ Take t’ beggar o ff; worse’n’ t t’ other.’ In the next over he was caught and bowled by G-iffen, and I can assure you there was an actual smile playing all over his features as he wended his way back to the pavilion. In the second innings he was caught out first ball, and he remarked when leaving the crease: ‘ D ------ glad o o t! T ’ beggar don’t make Aunt Sally of me any more this innings.’ The match resulted in a one innings victory for us, and we were all pleased we had not to bat on the wicket a second time.” O n e hears a good deal about the pro­ verbial uncertainty of cricket. It ia a solid and stern fact, of course. The thought occurs to me, looking at the figures, that the South Australian team could have done with a little more of it, perhaps, during the last few years in their inter-State matches with New South Wales. As a matter of history it is worthy of record that the Senior State of the Commonwealth has won every one of the last thirteen matches it has played against South Australia. It is small con­ solation to the vanquished to know that Fortune has this season again proved true to its traditions in favouring the big bat­ talions. In the case of the first match, that at Adelaide last month, the luck was all on the side of New South Wales. The spin of the coin determined the result beyond a doubt. On a good wicket New South Wales made 349. On turf soaked by rain, South Australia could not get more than 61, and then, when it had dried again, scored 179. A ll the same, the record of New South Wales in these thirteen matches has been a very remarkable one. Since December, 1900, the occasion of South Australia’s last victory, New South Wales has won eight times in one innings, once by ten, nine, eight and seven wickets respec­ tively, and once by 210 runs. In January, 1901, at Sydney, when they had an innings and 605 runs to spare, they made the huge score of 918, and since then totals of 681, 624, 556, 545, 472, 465 and 438. If my additions are correct the collective batting of the New South Wales side for these seven years gives a grand aggregate of 7,134 runs for 146 wickets, or an average of just under fifty runs. T h o u g h he had hardly got really going by that time, Captain Greig was having apparently a fairly busy time of it in Indian cricket during the Christmas week. He was in Calcutta then with the Bombay Gymkhana, and the best of his three innings, of which details have so far reached us, was his second score of 45 v. Ballyganj. R. H. Spooner, the Lancashire amateur, was also to have represented Bombay in the same match. He was, however, with a big shooting party, and had not reached Calcutta in time to play. J. V. S a u n d e r s , the slow left-handed bowler of Victoria, who was not brought over with the last Australian team to England, has been in his best form during the current season in Victoria. Up to the middle of last month he had obtained thirty-six wickets in Pennant and repre­ sentative games at a cast of a little over twelve runs apiece, and this without a wicket to help him at any time. In a match for a Victorian Eleven v. Fifteen of Bendigo, which included the old-time warrior G. H. S. Trott, he took eleven wickets for 45 runs. Trott was thoroughly satisfied, it may be added, with his delivery in every way. T h e Standard Athletic Club of Paris, which has visitei our South Coast in August now for several years, contem­ plates another trip to the same pirts at the end of the coming season. Sussex will this time be the objective. T h o u g h the claims of business have this season kept Viotor Trumper a little less before the Australian public than heretofore, he gives the Sydney crowd a refreshing proof of his versatility as a batsman when he “ has taken root.” They saw him quite at his best on December 15th in the match between Paddington and Burwood. He treated the Burwood bowlers severely to the extent of 172 in a shade under two hours. Among his hits were two 6’s and twenty- two 4’s. On the same day P. McAlister made 265 not out for East Melbourne v. St. Kilda in 235 minutes, his chief hits being 39 fours. At the end of the day East Melbourne bad scored 390 for four wickets. T h e Surrey eleven will, after all, not be seen on Irish soil next summer. The Committee had hoped to have been able to accept Mr. S anley H. Cochrane’s hospitable invitation to play Ireland (Gentlemen) on his ground at Bray, and a date (July 8) had been provisionally agreed on. What with the Gentlemen and Players at Lord’s, the match between Surrey and Yorkshire Second Elevens on the same days, and a strenuous engagement v. the South African team in the latter part of the week, the idea of a fixture had very reluctantly to be given up by the Surrey authorities for this year. R oger H a r iig a n , who, with G. Brown, helped to put on 113 for Queens­ land’ s first wicket against New South Wale9 last month, is only a Queenslander by adoption. He graduated first in Sydney cricket, and has represented Q leensland by virtue of his residence in Brisbane. S in ce he left Sydney to take up his residence in Brisbane he has been the most prominent figure in Queensland cricket, both club and inter-State. In