Cricket 1907

C R I C K E T : a w e e k ly r e c o r d o f t h e gam e. J U L Y 1 8 , 1 9 0 7 . e—<=- j<_<-" )Mc =*- )9 | | U f - M ■J, i i f iu jl \ W j t*?: ( I J E M M w M - i&wlLIP lAVv r H'' fwkj V-rtf trrmVnl ~V-r—rr -m—r* M L J £ 7 C s frM G t I /(1 ^ “ Together joined in Cricket’s manly to il.” — Byron. n o . 7 5 7 . v o l . x x v i . THURSDAY, JU L Y 18, 1907. p r i c e aa TH E H ISTORY OF KENT COUNTY CR ICK ET * Bit by bit, the history of cricket is being written. Following Middlesex, Surrey, and Yorkshire, Kent has found its historians. Sussex and Hampshire will doubtless follow in due course; partial records, indeed, exist already; and materials are rich for the stories of Lancashire and Notts. The ideal history of a county’s cricket would contain the score of every match played. On that plan was Mr. W . J. Ford’s “ Middlesex County Cricket Club,” and if room was found for little else than scores, if the personal reminis­ cence and antiquarian research, which add so much to the charm of cricket history, were no part of Mr. Ford’s plan, the gap was filled by Mr. W . A. Bettes- worth’s “ The Walkers of Southgate,” one of the most attractive of the many books added of late years to the cricketer’s library. But Mr. Ford’s plan was practicable only because the Middlesex Club’s history is short. It began with the Walk­ ers, and since it moved to Lord’s has some­ times seemed only the M.C.C. in county guise. Kent cricket be­ gan very much earlier, and the county has not only maintained its in­ dependence, but gained its greatest glories last. Considerations of space have, doubtless, pre­ vented the reprinting of the scores from 1744 to 1906. But almost everything elte that the keenest Kentish partisan can desire is given in the qiiarto volume now opportunely presented to us. A quarto (one may exhaust one’ s complaints at once) not the most con­ venient shape for an indolent reader ; but as compensation he finds numerous illustrations, admirably chosen, of the players from Lord John Philip Sackville, whose challenge produced the famous match of 1744, through the Mj’nn and Felix period, down to the heroes of the picture post-cards. Following the precedent of the Surrey hook this history of Kent cricket is by several hands. Fortunate in its captains, the county is further fortunate in haying them all surviving;' so'that from 1849 t’o this day the story is told by the men who led the teams in the field. Before Mr. Marsham was Mr. Bumup; before Mr. Burnup were Mr. Mason, Mr. Marchant, Mr. Patterson, and especially Lord Harris; and before Lord Harris was Mr. South Norton. They are all here; in a double sense, makers of history. Mr. Norton, indeed, does much more than tell the history of his own time. Starting ah ovo, and asserting with a fine patriotism that “ the history of cricket in Kent is . . . almost the same as the history of the game itself,” he discusses the origin of the sport, disputes its alleged antiquity, and contests its supposed derivation from “ club-ball.” That all games played with a ball and a stick must have some resem­ blance, is obvious; that one such game as “ trap and hall” or “ cat and dog ” should develop, by increasing the height of the wick­ et, into something like cricket, would not be strange. But Mr. Norton will not admit that this in fact hap­ pened. The evidence in support of the popu­ lar view, he argues, depends chiefly on the MS. in Mr. William Ward’s possession, quoted by Nyren: This refers to a wicket one foot high by two feet wide, under which was a hole into which the ball had to he placed to run the batsman out. This wicket was in Mr. Norton’s view, a mere skeleton hurdle, as Mr. Gale called it, designed merely to show the position of the hole, which was the true wicket. Cricket, he contends, did not begintill thewicketwas 22 inches high and six inches wide, with a bail, i.e., at the begin­ ning of the eighteenth century. But it is admitted that injuries to the wicket-keeper’ s knuckles, sustained in the struggle to get the ball into the hole before the hat, caused MESSRS. ALFRED MYNN AND FELIX. [RepmdiKed, bykindpermissionfrom ' TheHistoryofKent County Cricket. ’]