Cricket 1909

S e p t . 9, 1909. CR ICKET A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 393 of the individual. Finally, the spectators, very properly the last to be considered, enjoy watching the game better when the googly is absent. It is true that until the novelty has worn off the occasional occurrence of the unexpected lends variety to the proceedings, but batting is more attractive to watch when the bowling is more or less old-fashioned. The compelling argument against ruling a batsman out if the ball would have hit the wicket, no matter where it pitched, is the probability that such a law would encourage everybody to bowl googlies or slow leg- breaks. Practical cricketers also agree that such a rule would not cause the walk-in- front-of-the-stumps brigade to mend their ways. Under the present rule they are liable to be given out if they miss, and no worse could befall them if the rule were altered. E . T ag g took four wickets w ith con­ secutive balls for W estbrook v. N orw ood 2nd X I . on August 28th. I t has transpired that in Capt. W h ite ’s second innings for H am pshire against K ent at Bournem outh last week he h it his w icket hard in playing back to Blythe, and stirred both the bails w ith ­ out causing either to fall to the ground. N ext season Lan cash ire 2nd X I . w ill undertake a longer programme than usual, as the fixture w ith Cheshire w ill be revived. The other sides to be met are the Second E leven s of Yorkshire, Surrey and Notts. N ext year, by the way, Lancashire w ill play a ll the other first-class counties w ith the exception of Ham pshire. Gloucestershire w ill be met for the first tim e since 1900, and Sussex and Somerset w ill be played at Liverpool. L ast week E d w a rd A rn old , the W orcestershire cricketer, endeavoured to prevent a constable from arresting a m an in T rin ity Street, Worcester. H is m istaken zeal resulted in his being fined the m axim um penalty o f £ 5 and 10s. Gd. costs. E . G. T ait , of Forfarshire, has made four hundreds this season in Scotland, and is the only player w ho has proved so successful. Against Cupar he scored 111 not out and 100 not out (not in one match), against Dundee V icto ria 104, and against C lackm annan C ounty 100 not out. D uring the past few weeks a rum our has been current that J. D a n ie ll was about to resign the captaincy of Somerset. Fortunately for the C ounty there was no truth in the report: in fact, the old Cantab intim ated to the Somerset Comm ittee his w illingness to lead the side next season. D u ring the w inter m onths he w ill visit Ind ia w ith Prince Narayan, who is stated to be qualifying for Somerset. fifth hundred o f the year for Yorkshire, and took h is season’s aggregate for the C ounty to 1663 and his average— the highest for the side— to 38’67. H is 101 must ran k as one o f the finest in n in gs he has ever played. H e w ent in first and saw five wickets fa ll for 37 in response to a total of 124. T h e situation called for nerve and judgment, and Rhodes showed — not for the first tim e— that he possesses both those attributes. H e batted two hours and three-quarters on a bow ler’s w icket for h is runs and made no m istake. A m o r e attractive, but not a more meritorious in n in gs was that o f W . B . B u rn s on F rid a y afternoon. T arra n t had been giving a wearisome display and even so b rillia n t a hitter as H u tch in gs had taken 25 m inutes to make 13. The bright batting o f Burns, therefore, came as a very welcome relief. In 40 m inutes he reached 50 w h ilst only 19 other runs were made, and altogether obtained 04 out of 90 in five m inutes under the hour. H o w m arked a contrast his cricket was to that o f Tarra nt can be understood when it said that the latter took 140 m inutes to reach the half-century. B u rn s should have very pleasant memories of the m atch seeing that, besides h ittin g so successfully, it was his fast bow ling w hich got h a lf the Y o rk sh ire wickets for 37 on the first afternoon. A n instance o f the fieldsmen appealing against the light, w h ilst the batsmen were quite content w ith the conditions, was recorded in last Saturday’s B ir ­ m ingham League m atch between Aston U n ity and M itch e lls and Butlers. The form er made 80, and when the latter had 69 on the board for five wickets Aston made the appeal mentioned. The umpires ordered the game to proceed, whereupon A ston U n ity walked off the field. In the circumstances nothing remained but to award the match to M itchells, and Butlers. C lode , who played for Surrey occa­ sionally a few years ago, has taken 99 w ickets in D u rh am Senior League matches this season. O f the 99 runs made from the bat in the first in n in gs of Capt. Hughes- M o rg a n ’s X I . v. W . A . E dw ard s’ X I., at Brecon on August 26th and 27th, J. N . Craw ford was responsible for 71. The only other score above 5 was 11 by Percy Rees, but there were 28 extras and the total reached 127. Craw ford also took ten w icket for 51 runs— five in each innings. R euter ’ s representative has had an interview w ith M r. Leveson-Gower, the captain of the M .C .C . eleven w h ich leaves in the m iddle o f Novem ber for South Africa. the Essex bowlers were in good form and were accorded better support in the field than is generally the case. T he E ssex matches against the A u s­ tralians have resulted as follows :— 1898.—Drawn. 1896.—Australians won by seven wickets. 1899.—Essex won by 126 runs. 1902.—Drawn. 1902.—Drawn. 1905.—Essex won by 19 runs. 1905.—Drawn. 1909.—Drawn. 1909.—Drawn. O f the nine matches Essex have won two and the A ustralians one, six having been drawn. T h e return m atch o f 1905 and the first played this year were very much alike in one respect, the two last Essex men com ing together on each occasion a-quarter o f an hour before tim e w ith no prospect o f w in n in g the game. Freem an (J.) took part in the try in g ordeal in both years, B nckenham being his v is -a -v is in 1905 and M ead this season. Buckenham survived five appeals for leg-before w icket. A report has reached me of a recent m atch between M itch e lls & Butlers and M oseley in the B irm in g h am and D istrict League according to w h ich an occurrence, w h ich m ust be almost unprecedented, took place. “ M itch ells,” so the account says, “ did not close th eir innings in sufficient time, as M oseley thought, to give them a sporting chance, so F . G. Stephens and H . V . Harper sim ply stood at the w ickets and made strokes, but disdained to run. F o r half-an-hour they stood there, and often made hits from w h ich three could have been run, yet neither stirred ” Comm ent is needless. F rom the M o r n in g P o s t :— T h is winter is quite likely to make an epoch in the history of cricket. The new googly bowling w ill be on its trial, and we confess to feeling a heartfelt desire that it w ill fail. The presence on a side of a slow bowler who can make the ball turn both ways with a leg-break action does not in our view make the game more enjoyable for all parties concerned. Experience—and it is not an experience which rouses pleasant recollections— has taught us that batting against this peculiar stuff is no great fun even when runs have come with some freedom: the pleasure of flogging the ocea- tional fu ll toss or long-hop does not com­ pensate for the ignominy of finding oneself entirely wrong in guessing what the ball w ill do when it pitches, even though the error of anticipation has not been fatal. There is some satisfaction in deliberately playing as against an off break, when one knows that a ball pitching outside the off stump w ill go away, in order that the opposing captain may give his freak bowler another over, but this does not hold good when Mr. Carr is playing. The strokes which give the greatest pleasure to the executant cannot be played when the googly stuff is offered up. From the ordinary batsman’s point of view there is no fun to be got out of playiDg it when it is good or flogging it when it is bad. Nor is it nice to field to it. If one is placed on the off-side one has too much ground to cover ; if on the on there is no saying how the ball w ill come. No doubt the bowler himself gets his amusement, but cricket is not a game primarily intended for the delectation T he good fortune w hich attends the Scarborough F estival in the m atter o f weather is almost proverbial, but this year the play in it has been interfered w ith to a considerable extent. In the m atch against M .C .C . Rhodes made his “ The men chosen,” he said, “ w ill be hard to beat. The bowlers are excellent, and though it is difficult to predict what w ill happen on a matting wicket, the batting men ought to give a good account of them­ selves. We naturally have done all we could to get an amateur side together, and doubt