Cricket 1907

A p r il 11, 1907. CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF rlIIE GAME. 53 FIRST-CLASS CRICKET: AT HOME AND ABROAD. By J. N. P e n te lo w . There is diversity of opinion as to what matches should be called first-class here at home. As to what should be, not as to what are, for the M.C.O. decide that momentous question. The sporting papers used to decide it, and, on the whole, quite as well as the premier club now do it. With all due deference to the M.C.C., I think, personally, that it is a bigger mistake to reject a match which is first-class in everything but name, than to include one the claims of which are a trifle doubtful; I would even go further, and say that on the whole re­ jection is always a bigger mistake than inclusion ' When Ireland or Scotland or the West of Scotland or South Wales plays a first-class English side, no possible injustice could be done to first- class cricketers (unless slaves to the average mania would object on the plea that runs and wickets were cheaper in such a match, than in, say, Surrey v. Yorkshire) by the inclusion of the match in the first-class schedule; and violence is certainly done to the feelings of the worthy ciicketersof Scotland,Ireland, and Wales when such games are dismissed contemptuously as of no account. There cannot be any such tremendously great gulf between the strength of a fairly representative Scotch or Irish eleven and that of the weakest of the sixteen first- class shires - certainly the gap cannot be bigger than that between the strongest and the weakest of the sixteen. Looking the other day over the fixture list for the coming season in the March 30th issue of the Sportsman, I was struck by several inconsistencies. This list is not, of course, an official on e; but “ Wanderer ” may be relied upon to judge pretty accurately the view that the M.C.C. will take of any particular match. I find that among the matches expected to rank as first-class are :— All Ireland v. Yorkshire, at Bray. Cambridge University y. Gentlemen of England, at Cambridge. Cambridge University v. Gentlemen of England, at Eastbourne. Scotland v. South Africans, at Edinburgh. All Ireland v. South Africans, at Bray. And among those not expected so to rank are :— Warwickshire \v Dunlin University. Cambridge University v. Dublin Uni­ versity. Oxford University v. Free Foresters. West of Scotland v. South Africans, at Glasgow. Mr. S. Cochrane’s XI. v. South Africans, at Bray. South Wales v. SouthAfricans, at Cardiff. If this be a true forecast, the dividing line will assuredly be drawn with un­ necessary fineness. It is hardly likely that Mr. Cochrane’s Eleven against the Afrikanders will be weaker than that against Yorkshire, though the title is different. _If Scotland v. South Africa be con­ sidered first-class, surely that rank might be conceded to the West of Scotland game ? (In 1904 neither the Irish nor the Scotch match was allowed to rank, and Louis Tancred scored 250 in the latter. Anyone on the South African side making 250 at Edinburgh this year will presumably have made it in a first- class match; but Tancred’s big score was was not so made. Yet the Australian matches at Edinburgh in 1902 and 1905 were first-class !) The Free Foresters’ eleven which beat Oxford last season was distinctly a stronger team than Mr. H. D. G. Leveson-Gower’sEleven, which Oxford beat. If it had been called Mr. R. E. Foster’s team, or Captain Wynyard's team, or Mr. S. M. J. Wood’s, or Mr. H. Martyn’s, or Mr. C. J. Kortright’s, the match might have ranked ; but—it was called the Free Foresters. When Shakes­ peare asked, “ What’s in a name ? ” it would appear that he asked an extremely foolish question. When ore looks at the system of classification elsewhere than at home, one finds that it is in even worse confusion, however. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that it is non-existent than that it is in confusion. When Lord Sheffield gave the Sheffield Shield for annual competition between (one sug­ gests that ‘ among ’ might have been more correct) Victoria, South Australia, and New South Wales, nothing was surely farther from his lordship’s thoughts than the idea of doing harm to the rising Colonies (States now) of Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia. Yet the practical effect of the Sheffield Shield competition has been the keeping of these three in the background to a quite unfair extent. Some few Australian critics are large-minded enough to con­ cede that these matches are first-class; but the majority say, “ Oh, they are not fit to rank with the Sheffield Shield games, and until they are we cannot consider them first-class.” But how are the three weaker States ever to win their spurs ? The Shield competition will not be enlarged to include even one of them, let alone all three; and the critics will probably continue to refuse to take seriously any inter-State match outtide the Shield competition. There has been as yet no official pronouncement on the matter, because till lately there has been no central authority to give such a pro­ nouncement. Personally, I believe in ranking allAustralian inter-State matches as first-class. Only a couple of months ago Tasmania beat the best eleven she could induce Victoria to send her by five wickets, Charles Eady bowling splendidly and Reginald Hawson batting in brilliant form. Queensland has been very unlucky ; but a large proportion of the games she has played have been against New Scuth Wales, which State has so many really fine cricketers that she could put in the field at least three elevens of first-class calibre. I do not think that either Tasmania or Queensland would have lost a bigger proportion of Sheffield Shield matches during the last five or six seasons than South Australia has done, if either had been allowed to take the place of the wheatfield State. “ Wisden ” for 1905, by the way, actually gives “ eleven a-side averages” for the tour of the M.C.C. team in Australia, which leave entirely out of account three eleven a-side matches— two with Tasmania and one with Queens­ land ! The Australian critics in general did not give them first-class rank. But it is hardly playing the game to deny their being eleven a-side surely! I suppose most people would allow that the Currie Cup matches in South Africa are first-class. Assuredly Transvaal v. Natal is as essentially a first-class match as, say, Yorkshire v. Essex. And if Transvaal v. Natal be allowed to rank, onecan hardly refuse theclaims of Orangia v. Griqualind West, though it is a game of somewhat different type. In the matter of South African cricket, my own theory is that all Currie Cup matches and all eleven a-side matches against English teams should rank. Then there is New Zealand, the scene of the M.C.C.’s latest tour. If one allows first-class standing to the matches be­ tween the M.C.C. team and All New Zealand, one can hardly refuse it to the games in which provincial elevens met the touring team. Auckland and Wel­ lington in the North Island, Canterbury and Otago in the South, can all put into the field very fair elevens; and no harm could be done by considering their games against touring sides —and against each other —as first-class. Next to them in strength come Hawke’s Bay and Southland provinces. Perhaps these might also be worthy of inclusion. Taranaki, Nelson, Marlborough, and Westland, possessing no towns of con­ siderable size, have no pretensions as yet to meet the stronger provinces with any chances of success, and do not attempt to play English or Australian teams level­ handed. In America, the Philadelphians have established an indubitable claim to first- class rank ; and there would probably be few dissentients to the inclusion of Canada v. United States in the schedule of first-class matches. Matches played by Canadian elevens against visiting teams would thus reasonably be held to rank. New York cricket is scarcely great; but New York has several times pluckdy met teams from overseas on level terms, and I think that such pluck deserves recognition by the addition of these matches to the list. As to the West Indies and India, it is difficult to know where to draw the line. The English teams that have gone thither have invariably played eleven a-side matches; yet certainly some of the elevens they met were very distinctly below the rank of first-class. The West Indians were ranked first-class in England in 1906 (not in 1900, however); and if an Indian team came here its chief matches would probably be given that rank. But the classification of the matches played in the West Indies and in India wculd involve more minute knowledge of the form in these two quarters of the globe than I can pretend to possess. My suggested schedule for first-class