Cricket 1908

CRICKET : a w e e k ly r e c o r d o f t h e gam e. APRIL 30, 1908. “ Together joined in Cricket’s m an ly toil.”— Byron. N o 7 7 6 . v o l . x x v i i . THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1908. o n e p e n n y . KENT CRICKET. With neither a South African nor an Australian team visiting us this year, English cricketers will be able to devote practically all their attention to the doings of the counties. Followers of the game have not forgotten the many briilian. successful season. Last year they were, to call a spade a spade, disappointing, losing nine of the twenty-one matches finished and dropping from first place in the Champion­ ship table to eighth. At times they showed more than a glimpse of their form of 1906, and it is by no means improbable that, in the event of Mr. Burnup being able to play In 1750 a writer, then seventy-five years of age, observed, “ When I was a boy every cottage in the cricket-playing districts of Kent had a well-greased bat either kept in the bacon-rack or hung up behind the kitchen door,” and he added that his grand­ father was a famous local player in his day, ar.d “ within these last ten years 1could Flowers, W . (Umpire). Huish. Blythe. A. P. Day. E. W . Dillon. Humphreya. Hearne, W . (Scorer) J. R. Mason. Fairservice. Woolley. R. N. R. Blaker. Seymour. Fie'der. Millward, A . (Umpire). Hardinge. triumphs of the Kent XI. in 1906, and nothing would cause greater enthusiasm in the world of cricket than for the County t6 repeat those triumphs in 1908. All the men who then helped Kent to first position among the counties are available, and as they are still a young side and anxious to do well there would seem to be no reason >vhy they should not again enjoy a very fairly regularly this year, the team will again delight all lovers of the game by series of sparkling successes. Kent cricket can boast a glorious his­ tory, the records of which cover a period ex­ tending over two hundred years. The game was played at Maidstone during the reign of Charles I., and at Sevenoaks some time before the close of the seventeenth century. have shown you his name as one among a famous team preserved on a tablet over the chimney-piece of the Inn at Seven­ oaks.” Village cricket was general throughout the County during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, and in Mr. Edwin Stead, of Maidstone, and the 17th Earl of Leicester the game possessed two very enthusiastic and liberal patrons.