Cricket 1909

4 5 2 CR ICK ET A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. Nov. 25, 1909. addition to securing more than a hundred wickets, the list being as follows :— Runs. Wkts. H ir s t .................................................. 1256 ... 115 Rhodes .......................................... 2094 ... 141 S. G. Smith .................................. 1091 ... 115 Tarrant .......................................... 1043 ... 125 In all matches for the Australians W. W. Arm- strong's figures were 14S0 and 126 respectively. H irst has performed the feat ten times, and with Ilhodes has accomplished it in each of the last seven seasons. For Northants v. Derbyshire, at Northampton, S. G. Smith took fourteen wickets iu one day for 123 runs and scored 51; for Worcestershire v. W ar­ wickshire, at Edgbaston, Arnold obtained tvn wickets for 114 runs and played a not-out innings of 200; aud for Middlesex v. Glouces­ tershire, at B ristol—a match completed in a single day—Tarrant (performing the hat-trick and carrying his bat through the innings) took thirteen for 67 and made 55 not out. V I.— M emorabilia . Derbyshire v. Yorkshire, at Derby, May 3, 4 and 5.— In the first innings of the home side the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth wickets all fell with the score at 6G. Notts, v. Australians, at Nottingham, May 6, 7 and 8.— In scoring 125 not out in the County’s first innings, A. O. Jones made as many as 37 singles. In the visitors’ innings A. Cotter skied a ball between the wickets and Oates, running forward, waited for the catch but missed the ball, which spun back to the wicket and struck the stumps without removing a bail. M.C.C. and Ground v. Leicestershire, at Lo rd ’s, May 5 and 6.— In the second innings of the County V. F. S. Crawford played a ball from Tarrant on to his pads and was caught at slip by Relf (A. E.) Surrey v. Hampshire, at the Oval, May 6, 7, and 8.— On the first day Surrey made 645 for four wickets in five hours and a-quarter : Hobbs scored 100 not out before lunch. Altogether, Surrey totalled 742 in six hours and 20 minutes. The first hundred runs were made in 80 minutes, the second in 45, the third in 50, the fourth in 35, the fifth in 40, the sixth in 47, the seventh in 63 and the last 42 in 20. Hayts (276) and Hobbs (205) added 371 together for the second wicket in two hours and three-quarters, and the former and J. N. Crawford 114 for the fourih in 50 minutes. At 01 .e period of their partner­ ship Hayes and Hobbs made 58 runs in 12 minutes off four overs from Llewellyn (30) and Mead (C. P.) (28), and they adde 1 their last 130 runs in three-quarters of an hour. Hayes advanced his score from 100 to 153 in 17 minutes. In bowling C. B. F ry and E. M. Sprot in Hampshire’s first innings, Lees broke the off-stump of the former and the middle stump of the latter. In the visitors’ second iunings C. B. Fry scored 60 out of 78 in an hour, reaching 50 out of 62 in 50 minutes. {To be continued.) BOOKS R E C E IV E D . Melboui'ne Crickct Club. Annual Report for the Season 1908-1909. The twelfth annual smoking concert of the Der­ rick Wanderers C.C. will be held in the Great Eastern Hotel, Liverpool Street, E.C., on Friday, December 10th, at 7.15 p.m. K ENT, SITTING BOURNE. GORE COURT Cricket Club (Est. 1839) requires for season 1910 professional to bowl and do the ground work. Good references essential.—Apply R. S. Jackson, Junr., High Street, Sittingbourne. INDIAN CRICKET. Cricket and other sports are rightly com­ mended as great levellers. But I doubt whether their claim to promote brotherly feeling can be unreservedly accepted. The inteuse desire of each nationality for the success of its own representatives degenerates on occasions into passionate partisanship leading to discreditable scenes. The players themselves are animated, more or less by sportsmanlike feeling, but not so the crowd. At the close of a cricket match, held some time ago, between the Hindu Gymkhana and a local Parsi club, some of the crowd got excited over what they conceived to be a par­ tial decision of the Hindu umpire, and made a rush towards the pavilion. Granting that most of the rowdies were juveniles, their conduct, nevertheless, was inexcusable. Its worst feature is the promotion of bad blood between the two communities. The incident was made the subject of partisan comments in rival newspapers, which certainly did not make for the furtherance of peace or good will. It is the duty of the Press to help the better classes of both the communities in emphatically discountenancing the license of unreasoning hot bloods. Passions are liable to run high especially in what are rather un­ happily termed international contests. But [ am glad that the enormous crowd that wituessedthe Parsi-Hindu match maintained a decent behaviour, and was generally good- humoured throughout. I think the players may set a good example by establishing social amenites between themselves, and on this ground I heartily approve of the suggestion lately made by the “ Indu Prakash ” that some of the prominent members of one Indian Gymkhana may be admitted as honorary members of another. I might also suggest that friendly matches may be arranged between composite teams, which, while they w ill afford no scops for the creation of un­ healthy feeling, w ill appreciably improve the relations between the different communities. It is reported that it is in contemplation te send a representative Indian team to Eng­ land under the captainship of Jam Saheb Ranjitsinhji to play a series of matches the next year or the year following. If the great cricketer can get away for a few months with­ out prejudice to his responsibilities as a ruler, we should be extremely glad, because no Indian is so well fitted to lead a team of his own countrymen in England. In an eleven consisting of Hindus, Parsis and Moslems each one w ill instinctively feel that he is an Indian first and a member of his own race afterwards; and, all being animated by one common impulse, it w ill result in co-operation and also as surely in the promotion of cordiality. The recent matches in Bombay and Poona have established two things— first, that the Parsis have sadly deteriorated in fielding, and secondly, that the Hindus, fired by the inspiring example of their neighbours, have made remarkable progress in the game within the last decade. Their average bat­ ting is held by competent judges to be un­ questionably superior to that of the Parsis. The Parsis had always been the keenest of fieldsmen. In their early days, while their batting was poor and their bowling was exceedingly moderate in quality, their field­ ing was superb. They ran like racers, and a missed catch was a rare phenomenon. Whether wet or dry, hot or cold, all seasons to them were alike. They loved the game passionately, and put all their heart and soul into it. They knew not the science of the game, and whatever skill they acquired in it was by watching Englishmen at play and arranging matches with them. They had many a bout with soldiers, whom they treated liberally to beer at lunch. Whether this was due purely to generous hospitality, or to some ulterior motive not so honour­ able, I w ill not be so bold as to tell. But the Parsis were exceedingly keen about winning, and they went upon the principle that everything was fair in love and cricket. Tradition, too well authenticated, says that in these matches with soldiers a good bats­ man, after he was once dismissed, would go back to the wickets in a disguise, and that the trick had better chances of success with their unsuspecting opponents after lunch. T rad i­ tion again has a story about a Parsi trundler with a terrific pace, whose bowling was as erratic as it was fast. It hit more often the opposing- batsman than the wicket he was there to defend, and by a curious coincidence it so happened that the batsman whom it was most difficult to dislodge found himself hit about most by the balls. The Parsis were no great exponents of the game in those days. Their play was delight­ fully unorthodox and unscientific; yet there were among them cricketers who were wor­ shipped by their partisans, as much as if they had been a W. G. Grace or a Ranji. They were best known by their nick-names, which hit off their respective peculiarities. Where was batsman so formidable as Soloo, left hand, the hardest of hard sloggers, who threw science to the winds, when he set about his bus:n<ss in grim earnest ? Who could run so fast as Pesso Chen ? He had earned the pseudonjm of “ rat ” on account of his speed. Bomon Murghi, great with bat and ball alike, as was his prototype, Bomon Ariaiy, was so called because his style of running, before he delivered his under-hand ball, had a remarkable resemblance to tbat of a hen. Shades of Jamas Bhoot, formid­ able as his name, and Rastai Sargar, reputed to have a particular fondness for the Lottie, and Heeraji Kosba, in whom the passion for cricket was not damped by his huge size and enormous girth! He was wicket-keeper extraordinary, a very wall behind the sticks. For the ball to get past this living barricade was a physical impossibility. He was a man of exceeding piety. When he did not play, he prayed. Once he was playing in a match, and as he was taking a run his cap fell off. H e stopped short in m id career, picked up the cap and put it on his head. H is irreverent opponents ran him o u t; but nothing loath, he returned to the tent. He lost his wicket, but saved his soul. I have not space to dwell on the inter-club rivalries, jealousies and animosities of those days, culminating occasionally in free fights. Sorabdaru, a white-turbaned priest of alder- manic proportions, kept the peace between the combatants. He was a fighting parson, distinguished more for his physical prowess than for spiritual attainments. Among these stalwarts in the brave old days cricket was not a pastime, nor an easy-going affair. They were none of your latter-day flannelled fops, lounging lazily in front of the wicket, taking a certain number of strokes with the bat, and then retiring for the next comers. There was no practising at the nets, and no hirelings to do the fielding for them. Cricket was a grim, strenuous business, not to b3 trifled with. Each day’s play was as good as a match, and a match was as serious and exciting an affair as tbe international fixture of to-day. It was a matter of life and death.