Cricket 1907

J uly 25, 1907. CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 297 keeping the Bide among the leading two or three counties, have performed very creditably. F r o m the Star :— Quiet play followed, and in the midst of a great silence, a voice, hardly dulcet in tone, wanted to know when the men were going to score. No answer being vouchsafed, the anxious inquirer consulted the oracle of a stone bottle, and the incident closed. The above refers to the slow scoring by Lancashire at tbe commencement of play on Friday morning list. T h e r e was some very curious cricket seen in the match between Worthing and Old Brightonians, at Worthing on the 17th inst. The latter, going in first, declared with only three wickets down for 210, the first pair, Belcher and Hoff- meister, making 176 in partnership. Worthing were left 125 minutes in which to obtain the runs. Again a good stand was made for the first wicket, Havers and Mathews scoring 151 together. After­ wards, however, the bowling met with so much success that Worthing still required four runs when the sixth wicket fell. Three were obtained and then the eighth man was sent back. Worthing had throughont played with only ten men, so, with the scores level, there was but one wicket to fall. Cotchin, however, pre­ sumably thinking that he would not be required, had left the ground. The um­ pires waited two minutes in case he appeared, and then declared the match a tie. The scores were as follows: — O ld B rightonians . A. H. Belclier, c Havers, b S. Mathews ...107 O. E. Hoffmeister, run o u t ........................... 66 G. Belcher, c Mitchell, b S. Mathews ... 22 A. L. Corbett, not out ................. ... ... 11 Extras...................................... 4 Total (3 wkts) *210 B. B. de la Pere, H. It. J. Holmes, S. C- Hellings, E. W. Sutton, 0. E. H. Thomas, W. E. 1. Read, and E. L. Turner did not bat. * Innings declared closed. W orthing . H. L. Havers, c Hoffmeister, b de la Bere 101 J. K. Mathews, c Read, b de la Bere ... 65 D. E. Smith, c Holmes, b Corbett ........ 7 S. Mathews, b de la Bere ........................... 5 H. Mitchell, run out ................................. 5 E.E. White,notout ................. ..........17 J. O. Gaisford, c G. Belcher, b Corbett ... 0 F. Clement- on, c A. H. Belcher, b Corbett 2 G. E. O. Hitchcock, c Holmes, b de la Bere 0 F. I. Cotcbin, absent .............................. 0 Extras..................................... 8 Total...................210 P h i l i p Mead and Stone, of the Hamp­ shire Eleven, had some pleasant batting practice at Brockenhurst last Saturday. Playing for Hampshire Club and Ground against Mr. E. J, Morant’s X I., they opened the innings by scoring 243 for the first wicket. Stone was then bowled for 89, but Mead remained until he had made a faultless 287, which included a 5 and forty-nine 4’s. The total of the inn­ ings was 498. On the same day the Royal Artillery declared their innings closed at 532 for eight wickets against Royal Navy at Shoeburyness, and North­ umberland Gentlemen their’s at 563 for nine wickets against the Yorkshire Gen­ tlemen at Newcastle. M a jo r A. C. R i c h a r d s , to one of whose performances in Africa reference was made in last week’s “ Gossip,” was playing at Lord’s on Wednesday and Thursday for M.C.C. v. Household Brigade. He scored 60 and 50, making his runs out of 65 obtained in his first innings and hitting seven 4’s in his second. As many as 1168 runs were made in the match during the two days, M.C.C. scoring 339 and 206 and House­ hold Brigade 466 and 97 for four wickets. P ome extraordinary cricket was the out­ come of the meeting of Newport Grammar School and Saffron Walden Grammar School last Saturday. The latter, going in first, were dismissed for 20, R. East,en taking six wickets for 10 and E. Wiley three for 7. The two successful bowlers then went in to open the Newport innings, and they fared so well that, when stumps were drawn, they had scored 256 and were still together. Eastern carried out his bat for 152, and Wiley for 103. P l a y i n g for Caterham Asylum against Redhill, at Caterham on the 17th inst., a bowler named Brown was put on 13 min­ utes before time when the visitors had five wickets in hand. His first ball was untouched, but with each of the succeed­ ing five he hit the stumps, his analysis for the innings therefore reading— I over, I maiden, 0 runs, 5 wickets. On the following day G. Rawdon took four wicketa wkb consecutive balls for Fulham Tradesmen v. Brentwood Thurs­ day, at Wormholt Farm, Wormwood Scrubbs. H owar TH, a professional, took all ten wickets for fix runs for Spalding v. Sleaford on Saturday. Sleaford scored 27, and Spalding 190 for five wickets. A t Brighton last week C. B. Fry, for the third time in his career, missed obtaining two separate hundreds in a first-class match by a single run. When Sussex co nmenced their second innings on the Friday evening he held himself back, and, as events proved, the policy caused him to fail by the nearest possible m trgin to register his second three-figure scire in the game. Mr. Fry has already made four double-hundreds :— *1^3 I 1 Sussex v- Middlesex, at Brighton .......... 1898 229 j Sussex v. Surrey, at Brighton ................ 1900 j Sussex v. Kent, at Brighton ................. 1903 Jjjg |Sussex v. M.O.O. and Ground, at Lord's 1905 and has thne times missed doing so by a a single run: — |Sussex v. Hampshire, at Brighton.......... 1898 * 12 ^ |Sussex v. Leicestershire, at Brighton ... 1903 Ijjg j Sussex v. Worcestershire, at Brighton ... 1907 * Signifies not out. On two other occasions he has stopped short at 99, making that number for Oxford University v. Kent, at Maidstone in 1895, and for Sussex v. Kent, at Brighton in 1902. M r. F r y is in capital form at the present time, and doubtless it was very disippointing to him to miss the double hundred, and three centuries in succes­ sion, by one run. But such “ acci­ dents ” will happen. One occurred in 1874 to “ W. G .,” who, if he had made a hit out of the Canterbury Ground in one of his innings, would have made six hundreds in succession, his scores being 110, 167, 94 and 121, 123, and 127. Mr. Fry occupies a very prominent position in the batting averages now, but, in justice to other cricketers, it should be pointed out that he was extremely fortunate in not playing upon the bowlers’ wickets which were so prevalent during the first two months of the season. A B r ig h t o n correspondent writes to me as follows: - “ There were 23 bowling changes in the innings of 299 by Sussex last Thursday. The first occurred at 11, and when 93 had been scored the bowliog had been changed ten times. Lunch score 121 for three: thirteen bowling changes. When Simpson-Hayward went on for the sixth time he got Fry out first ball: score 211. The twenty-third change was made at 278. Only five bowlers went on, and Pearson bowled only one over.” F. W. G bast , playing for the Forest Wanderers against Sneiton Club and Ground, on the Forest Ground at Not­ tingham on Saturday, took all ten wickets of the latter at a cost of only 12 runs. The Sneiton total was 48. O n Thursday last “ W.G.” celebrated his fifty-ninth birthday by scoring 66 in 90 minutes for his own team against Mr. W. F. Lowndes’ X I. at Chesham. His success recalls the lines inspired by his opening score of the season of 1893 :— “ The wondrous veteran, W.G., At forty-five scores sixty-three ! (At sixty-three Grace may we see Score forty-five!) There seems to be no reason why the “ Old Man ” should not continue to score well for several years to come. T h o s e who saw Strudwick keeping wicket for Surrey in the matches against the South Africans and Lancashire must have been convinced that wicket-keeping can be carried into the region of the fine arts. His work on the leg-side especially was brilliant, and in neither of the four innings did he allow a single bye, the totals being 162 and 217 by the South Africans and 252 and 165 by Lancashire. T h e following is from the Yorkshire Evening Post of Saturday last:— A Greetland assault case, the sequel to a game of cricket, came before the Halifax county magistrates to-day. GledhillPriestley, 20 years of age, a twiner piecer, of West