Cricket 1908

18 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. F e b . 27, 1908. his day, but, 'being a thirsty soul, was not always reliable. There were some capital players at Cambridge whilst I was in residence, and although we lost to Oxford in 1858 we won in 1859 and 1860. R. A. Bay- ford, new a K.C., kept wicket for us. T. E. Bagge, whom I see every year at Lord’s, was a good bat ; his great feat was to score 62 and 60 for Gentlemen against Players at the Oval in 1860. Joseph Makinson had been in the Eleven two years before I played at Lord’s He was for a time regarded as the finest gentleman.bat in England, and was beyond doubt first-rate and with a fine style. He did not keep up the game as much as could be wished, but when he came from his semi-retirement generally managed to give an excellent account of him­ self and to prove that his ability had not been over-estimated. He possessed very long arms, and made good use of them ; for he played forward a great deal. In 1860, in a match between XX . of the Manchester Broughton Club and The England Eleven, he scored, 104 against Jackson, Willsher, Tarrant, and Hayward, and hundreds against such bowling were very rare. There were only two other double-figure scores— 14 and 12—in the innings. He was a good bowler as well as bat, lout he made so many good scores that one was somewhat apt to overlook his skill with the ball. Sir. Fred Lee, who played for us in 1860, was chosen for the Gentlemen for his batting; he often attends the matches at Lord’s. Just about that time Brighton College turned out some very use­ ful men, including G. E. Cotterill, A. E. Bateman, E. B. Fawcett, and Denzil Onslow, all of whom got into the Cambridge Eleven during my time. Fawcett was a fast bowler and a big thrower. They were all big men, Fawcett especially, and it has been said that when they were at Brighton the Eleven,' lying in a row, could cover the distance between the wickets, thus averaging six feet each. One of'our best bowlers was H. M., now SirH. M., Plowden, who got lots of wickets, especially in 1860. He was a dodgy slow bowler, with remarkable spin. E. L. Horne, ef Shrewsbury, bowled right hand, and came in from leg, and Henry Arkwright was, of course, the famous slow round-arm bowler from Harrow. Robert Lang posses ed great pace, though originally he came out as a slow bowler. He was very effective on his day, and a splendid short- slip. At Kennington in 1860 he and Plowden helped XV I. of the University to beat Surrey by 42 runs. They got the County out for 34 and 90, taking ten wickets each; in the first innings they got the last six wickets down for eight runs. Surrey were,’ very strong at that time, and their collapse against us was long remembered. I mtist not forget to mention Mr. F. H. Nor­ man, who was captain in my last year. He belonged to a cricketing family, and made many very large scores. He had a curious habit of standing behind the.wieket with the bowler, and when the latter ran up to deliver the ball of advancing with him, which must have been very baulking to the bowler. VVhilst at Cambridge I saw a batsman bowled by a- ball which shot and hit the wicket low down. A bail was knocked up and, in falling, it lodged between two of the stumps. As it did not reach the ground, the batsman was given not out.” ‘ •Who were the mainstays of the Oxford team in those days ? ” “ C. 1). Marsham, who was called ‘ Mynn ’ Marsham, and C. G. Lane were perhaps the best known, though the latter whilst at the University was not nearly so good a batsman as he afterwards became. Marsham was the finest amateur bowler of his day and was frequently chosen for the Gentlemen. He had an easy and pretty delivery and was very straight. Lane was a fine cutter and made many good scores for Surrey when the side proved so successful under Miller’s leadership. When he appeared in the Veterans’ match at Lord’s in 1887 he gave a glimpse of his old form and reached double figures in each innings. He could sing well and was a very popular man. In addition to Marsham and Lane there were AV. F. Traill and Cassan. Traill, who died a few years ago, was fast medium, very accurate and with considerable spin. Like Marsham, he often appeared against the Players. Cassan was not so well known, but in his only Uni­ versity match—that of 1859—he was the most successful bowler against us, taking nine wickets. His delivery was curious, for he appeared to shoot the ball in some manner through his hand, imparling a curl to it.” “ W ill you tell me something concerning your subsequent cricket? ” ‘ ‘ I played occasionally for Middlesex, and took part in the tie-match with Surrey at the Oval in 1868. There was naturally a good deal of excitement at the finish, though probably not so much as there would be in these days of big crowds. It was curious that earlier in the season Surrey should have playel a tie with the M.C.O. on the same ground. When the Middlesex County C.C. was formed in 1864 I was elected to serve on the Committee, of which only a few of the original members remain ; those that I can recall at the moment are the Hon. Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, it. J. P. Broughton, and Russell Walker. Sir Spencer’s brother Fred and his great friond, the Hon. Robert Grim- ston, were also elected, but both have been dead some years. For a few years I was on the M.C.C. Committee, and it was during my term of service that a very curious event occurred in the course of an Eton and Harrow match. The facts are briefly these : Whilst Eton were batting, a ball, travelling towards the boundary, struck a spectator lying on the ground and stopped. No one doubted that the ball would have reached the ropes. The batsmen ceased running but, as the umpire had not called four, a fieldsman broke the wicket with the ball whilst the batsman was out of his ground and appealed. The umpire said ‘ Out,’ and immediately there was an uproar. The batsmen left their wickets, the spectators swarmed over the ground, and the boys shouted ‘ Out! ’ or ‘ Not out! accord­ ing to the colour of the favour they wore. So much excitement was there that the Princess of Wales, who was present with the Duke of Edinburgh, drove away. A Com­ mittee meeting was called to decide what should happen, though the right thing to do was, of course, to abide by the umpire’s decision. That was in 1866. I played several times for the Gentlemen, both at Lord's and the Oval, but not after my twenty-fifth year; my last match for them was at Lord’ s in 1863 —.two years before 1 W. G.’ catije out. In the sixties the Civil Service, whose ground was in Battersea Park, played many enjoyable matches. I toured with them in Devon and Cornwall and two or three times in Ireland. The Hon. Spencer Ponsonby (as he then was) was President, the Hon. E. T. Thesiger treasurer, and I vice-President and captain. At Southgate, too, where I often played, there was capital cricket, especially when XV I. of Southgate played the United All England X I. A military band would be in attend­ ance and the play was always very keen. John Walker, the eldest of the seven brothers, was a splendid hitter and played a wonderful innings of 98 against the Players at the Oval in 1862. V. E., R. D., and I.D. all made great names for themselves; in fict six of the brothers, as well as an uncle, were at various times chosen for the Gentle­ men. The ground at Southgate was beauti­ fully kept, and the hospitality was unbounded always. I used sometimes to bowl—slow round; it was rather expensive but I frequently got wickets, chiefly by catches. About 1872 I became seriously ill, and to a great extent lost touch with cricket. For seven years I was unable to get about save in a bath-chair, and during that time did not go to Lord’s or anywhere else and so missed all the University matches. Ths consequence was that after about ten years I went back a spectator. One day, whilst being wheeled round the Hastings ground in my chair, I made a catch off a fast bowler a short distance behind one of the practice wickets, and that was all the cricket I had for many years. When I at length felt well enough to play again I was glad to find that my batting had not forsaken me ; in my first innings I made about 80, but I had a runner. Although I am no longer young, I feel that I could still score fairly well, though it would be necessary to have someone to run for me. I always preferred fast bowling to slow; a bowler of the Southerton type often proved my undoing, but I generally scored against underhand lobs, which were more common then than they are now. Of the many fast bowlers I played against I think that Freeman had the greatest pace, though there was not much to choose between him and Harvey Fellows; he was, however, appreciably faster than Tarrant and Jackson. There have been a good many changes in the game since I first played at Lord’s. We usually ran out our hits, which was far more fatiguing than hitting the ball to a boundary and standing still. Then how different the wickets were in those days! Lord’s was anything but a billiard table, except—as John Lillywhite once remarked—- as regards the ‘ pockets.’ When men like Jackson and Tarrant bowled there, it was not unusual for two balls of an over to go first bound into long-stop ’8 hands and the other two to be shooters. How seldom one sees a shooter now ! When one comes along it generally takes a wicket. An innings of 40 or 50 made half-a-century ago would be equivalent to about a hundred in these days. In the old times amateurs paid all their travelling and hotel expenses, which is not the case now, and consequently only gentle­ men who were well-to-do could afford to play at all regularly.” Mr. Benthall has lived in St. Leonards for over thirty years, and has never allowed his interest in the game to wane. He was one of the founders of the South Saxons, who at one time had a very good side, including the Papillons and Messrs. H . and C. Pigg, and is generally to be seen on the Central Ground during the Hastings Festival. The AMERICAN CRICKETER. F ouvdkd 1877. Published by H. H. Cornish on behalf of The Associated Cricket Clubs of Philadelphia. An Illustrated Journal of Cricket, Association, Football, Tennis, Golf, and Kindred Pastimes. No. 632, Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa., U .S.A. pbiok 10/- per annum, post paid anywhere. Specimen copies mailed on request.