Cricket 1908

J u ly 2 , 1908 . CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 249 second eleven of the County, but it was not until three years later that he began to make his mark in serious cricket. He then averaged 30.27 for eleven innings for Surrey’s second string, scoring 77 against Yorkshire 2nd X I. at Epsom and 59 against Wiltshire at the Oval. The same year he played occasionally for the' first eleven, making 172 runs in nine completed innings and taking nine wickets. Last season he averaged 46.91 with the bat for the second eleven and 30 for the first, whilst three weeks ago he played an innings of 170 against Berkshire at the Oval. He drives with great power and places well to leg, and is a useful medium-paced change bowler. w e see that K ent, Notts and Surrey have had to w ork on these lines, and that Yorkshire—even w ith their resources—have an instructor, w ith nothing else to do, a practical cricketer like Barlow, Watson, or Cuttell should he given the task of instructing young Lancashire. The Lancashire County team need not sink below zero for the w ant of an effort, as any measure of success w ould am ply repay all the ex ­ penditure involved. So m uch depends on the choice o f a ‘ coach ’ that Barlow m ay be accepted as the type of man required, if n ot the very m an.” A l t h o u g h the side which did duty for the M .C.C. at L ord’s in the latter part of last week was far from being the strongest which could have been chosen, it was never­ theless sufficiently good to cause the feat of the Light Blues in obtaining the neces­ sary 325 runs in the last innings to be a very meritorious one. For their success man who took no less than 78 wickets last year in good-class club matches not to have the chance of a turn with the ball when the match is going against his s:de. To see V. F. S. Crawford get rid of first-class batsmen in club cricket, and to know that he obtained over eleven hundred wickets before the age of 17, seems to cast a slur upon the perception of those captains who amongst them have allowed him to send down only 120 overs or so in first-class cricket during the past ten years of his association with Surrey and Leicestershire. It is a ridiculous thing to chronicle, but in County Championship matches last season he was put on to bowl only once, and then when Yorkshire, at Hull, went in to make EARLY CRICKET AT CHARTERHOUSE. (Showing the old-fashioned curved bat and the wichet o f two stumps.) F ro m the Athletic News :— “ Barlow goes here, there, and everywhere to coach young players. Now, if Barlow can be useful to Derbyshire, and Essex, and other counties, how is it that he is never asked to Old Trafford for the same purpose ? Nay, w hy do not the County Comm ittee take an experienced im perial cricketer like Barlow, still in the very prim e of life, and ask him to prepare som e cricketers— both professional and amateur— for Lancashire 1 H is heart w ould be in the work. We heard a fine old cricketer the other day declare that he had never know n Lancashire so w eak as they are to-day in all departm ents of the game. As cricketers cannot be gathered like blackberries they m ust be m ade. We are assured that there are 110 good young players in the Liverpool district. Where is the Liverpool and D istrict team now that could play Yorkshire and the Australian tourists the same as they used to do ? No, we w ant to seriously con­ sider the training of cricketers. If Barlow was installed at Old Trafford, and given the material, he w ould m ake m en of them , or we are sadly m istaken in him . The authorities m ay well keep a staff of ground bowlers, but they should reserve their best young professionals to be system atically taught by precept and exam ple, and these m atchplayers in ‘ posse ’ should be introduced into every m atch for Lancashire second and the Manchester Club. When they were chiefly indebted to Falcon, who scored 122 by very sound cricket, and to Goodwin, who hit successfully at the close and made 49 of the last 55 in 35 minutes. The match should certainly give the side confidence in their match with Oxford on the same ground next week. It is worthy of remark that, in totals of 232 and 327 for eight wickets, K ing should have taken twelve wickets at a cost of seventeen and a-half runs each. T h e victory of the Cambridge team was very highly satisfactory to them from their own point of view no doubt, and furnished the spectators with some excellent cricket for the greater part of the afternoon. All cricketers like to be on the winning side, and it must be particularly galling to a one run to win ! Crawford always was, and is, a most useful bowler, and is much too good to play the part of on-looker to a side embracing but three bowlers. T w o University Blues in the persons of the Hon. C. N. Bruce (Oxford) and J. N. Buchanan (Cambridge) will play as first- strings in the inter-’Varsity match on the 10th inst. M. W . B o o t h , who has been given a trial with the Yorkshire eleven this week, is 21 years of age, 5ft. n£in . in height, and hails from Pudsey. W ith the Y ork­ shire 2nd X I. last season he averaged 16.13 with the bat for fifteen innings and took twenty-three wickets at a cost of 18.30 runs each ; his highest score was 57 against