Cricket 1908

CRICKET A W EEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. J u n e 25, ig o§. w ith the falling off in the standard of U niversity team s. College m atches ought to be valuable to the U niversity b y bringing players in to notice. A s a fact they are not. They m erely provide a certain num ber of m en w ith tolerably pleasant exercise for their afternoons. Few care very m uch about the results of them ; and this attitude of m ind issues in slack fielding and purposeless bow ling. Therefore runs are exceedingly cheap, and the scoring does not afford to the captain of the U niversity eleven a trustw orty guide to help him in selecting his side, nor do the m atches give to candidates for Blues opportunities of keen and useful m atch practice. It is easier to detect the evil than to suggest a rem edy. The establishm ent of a com petition 011 the League system m ight produce good results, bu t objective inducem ents to keenness ought not to be necessary T he sam e critic is also responsible for the follow in g interesting rem arks con­ cerning “ W .G .” and the Jam o f N aw ana­ g a r :— “ R anji ” is the one man w ho m ay be considered the equal of W . G. in pure skill. The nam es of others, Shrew sbury, Richard Daft, W . W . Read, Trum per, M acLaren m ay be m entioned honoriscausa, but no one of them can seriously challenge the suprem acy of Grace. M ost people w ould put Trum per first o f those five, but even he has not exercised anything like the influence on the batting o f his generation w hich the tw o Cham pions of Cham pions have produced. It is they w ho have in their respective tim es provided the m odels w hich young cricketers in their dream s succeed in im itat­ ing. If w e m ay regard VV. G. and “ R anji ” as equal in pure skill— for perfection im plies equality—we m ay also adm it that the older m an has been the greater run-getter, w hen allow ance has been made for the difference between grounds in the Seventies and those of to-day. B ut run-getting is n ot entirely a m atter o f pui-e s k ill: tem peram ent has m uch influe ce on a m an’s scores. Ever since “ R a n ji” m ade secure his position am ong the great cricketers of his age he has always been a batsm an of m oods. M any a tim e he has given the im pression that he had m ade up his m ind in the Pavilion how m any runs he proposed to get, and w hen he has accom plished his object, and obtained sufficient exercise, his interest seem s to evaporate. N ot so W. G . H is ideal seem ed to be to be jjlaying an active part in the gam e during all the hours of daylight, and, w hen he could n ot be bow ling or fielding, he w ould just bat till stum ps were draw n or the supply of partners was exhausted. H is enorm ous physical strength m ade it practically im possible for him to feel tired, and it is a m oral certainty that if he were now in his prim e he w ould, w ith the increased opportunities for playing first-class.cricket, and that on our vastly im proved w ickets, cut all records of aggregate and ave age. M r. E. N. B u x t o n presided over a m eet­ ing o f the London P la yin g Fields Society on Tuesday last w eek, at the Sports C lub. M r. G. J. M ordaunt, the secretary, reported that the Trustees of the City Parochial Charities had given the society a very generous grant o f £ 5 0 0 , anc^ E. N . Buxton stated that H .R .H . the Prince of W ales had practically prom ised to open the Fairlop P laying Field next spring. Several m em bers of the G old­ s m it h s ’ Com pany visited the G o ld s m it h s ’ Playing Field on M ay 30th, and expressed them selves highly satisfied with the laying out o f the field which the G oldsm iths’ C om ­ pany had so generously bought and let to the Society at a nom inal rent. T h e last m ail from South A frica brought me the w elcom e new s that Louis J. Tan- cred, w ho has been in Johannesburg H ospital suffering from a serious attack o f pneum onia, was well on the road to recovery. At one time his condition w as extrem ely critical. A t L ow er Close, N orw ich, on the 16th inst., G . A- Stevens (256) and C . J. I r e g - lawn (117) put on 325 runs for the third w icket c f N orwich School against Ipswich School. T he total o f the innings w as 456, and Ipsw ich School were defeated by 387 runs. “ T h e cu riou s,” says the Manchester Guardian, “ must have been struck with the constant recurrence o f the letter ‘ H ’ in reports of cricket matches. T he num ­ ber of great players whose names begin with an ‘ H ’ is rem arkable. .W here would Y orkshire be, for instance, without H aw ke, H irst, H aigh, H ardisty, and H u n ter? Surrey, again, would not be Surrey without H ayw ard, H obbs, H olland, and H ayes. T he honour of Kent is gener­ ally in the hands o f H utchings, H ar­ dinge, H um phreys, and Huish ; and Lan­ cashire boasts a fine array of ‘ H ’s ’ in H ornby, Hartley, Huddleston, and Harry. Other counties, again, have a H earne and a H argreave, to m ention no m ore. An England team m ight alm ost be chosen from aspirated players alone. Certainly an ‘ H ’ eleven should ho!d its own against the best team selected from the re­ m aining county players, and this suggests that a m atch Aspirates v. Rest of Alphabet m ight be introduced into one of the festi­ val week p rogram m es.” T h e s. s . Umbria, with the Philadelphian team on board, sailed from N ew Y ork on Saturday. Their first match is against a South W ales team , at Cardiff, on the 6th prox. B a sil S. F o s t e r , a m ember of the W or­ cestershire brotherhood, is understudy to Joseph Coyne in “ T h e Merry W idow ” at D a ly ’s Theatre. Last week he scored on successive days 100 for Hampstead v O u een’s Club, and 159 not out for Free Foresters v. R oyal M ilitary Academy, W oolw ich . H e has a residential qualifica­ tion for M iddlesex. E. O l iv ie r , the C am bridge Freshm an, has been awarded his Blue. lie bowls m edium -to-tast right-hand, and was a m ember of the Repton Eleven o f 1906, when he took thirty-eight w ickets at a cost c f 19.05 runs each. In the Fresh­ m en ’s match, last m onth, he took only tw o wickets for 93 runs, and since then his analyses have been :— 1 for 48 v. \ ork- shire, 10 for 151 v. Kent, 2 for 120 v. Sussex, 11 for 116 v. G . J. V . W e ig a ll’s X I., 2 for 81 v. Surrey, and 10 for 192 in this w eek ’s return match with Sussex. In the Peram bulators v. Etceteras match he obtained seven w ickets for 115 runs. A s R . E. H. Baily and K . G . Macleod have also received their Blue for C am ­ brid ge, only tw o places in the Eleven now rem ain open. Kenneth M acleod now ranks as a triple Blue, as he has already appeared for his University a ga ;- ' O x ­ ford at R ugby football and athletics. H e is an excellent fieldsman, a useful bowler, and a hard-hitting batsman. T h e Suffragettes have invaded the cricket field. At Old Trafford a few days a go they distributed handbills, enclosed in illustrated envelopes. T he first portion of the circular read :— “ T h a t’s not Cricket, U m pire! to take w om en’s earnings by taxation and not to acknow ledge them as citizens. The m en ’s teams have v otes; then Play the G am e and tell Umpire Asquith that the w om en ’s teams must have votes a ls o !” S in c e last season the Leicestershire County C .C . have enrolled 250 new m em ­ bers. The m embership is now 1,800, the largest in the history o f the club, but it is hcped that eventually the number will reach 2,000. It is g o cd news that the financial position o f the Club is brighter to-day than it has been for several years past. T h e r e was som e fast scoring in the match at Leyton on the 13th inst. between Southend A and Leyton W csleyans. The latter, left 196 to win in 85 m inutes, won by seven wickets in what would in any case have been the last over o f the day. A. M illw ard (53) and his son, W . C . M ill- ward (94), made the last 90 runs in twenty- five minutes. A c o r r e s p o n d e n t sends me the follow ­ ing cu riosity:— “ In a match at Acton on June 7th, between W’hitcom b W anderers and Droits, when F. R . H olm es (m edium - to-fast right) bowled one o f the latter, the m iddle stump w as knocked straight back and both bails sent forw ard about four yards down the pitch, one in a direct line with the leg-stum p and the other with the off-stum p. T he bails m ight have been p jrp oselv placed there so truly did the distance of each and the angle at which they lay correspond.” A t a m eeting of the N ew South W ales C ricket A ssociation on May 18th it was reported that the A ssociations in all the States except Tasm ania had paid the amounts due to m ake up the 10,000 guaranteed the M .C .C . by the Australian Board of C ontrol. T he sum o w in g by that State was £^65, and a recomm endation was made that* in order that the accounts should be prom ptly settled the N ew South W ales A ssociation should advance the amount. The recomm endation, after som e opposition, was agreed to. A t B urton’s C ourt, Chelsea, on M on­ day, K . J. K ey, the old Surrey skipper, played a rou sing innings of 107, which in­ cluded fifteen 4 ’s. H e also took three w ickets for four runs.