Cricket 1909

4^8 CR ICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OE THE GAME. Dec. 21, 1909. THE DIVISIONAL CHAMPION­ SHIP. B y H. P.-T. A R E V IS IO N O F C R IC K E T H IS T O R Y. To tell how the divisional system would work in practice (short of adopting it), the best way is to ascertain how it would have acted in the past, if it had been applied over a sufficient length of time to afford a thorough test. This is the task here essayed. It is a simple matter (though rather a long one) to reconstruct the Championship Tables of former years, in a divisional form, by the results of matches actually played; and, assuming that clubs have tried their best to succeed under the accepted reckoning— it is a poor compliment to it if they haven’t !— these results ought to show pretty fairly how the same clubs would have fared under any other system.' There is only one considerable blemish in the transposition: that, under the authorized conditions, clubs playing short programmes have naturally not chosen their opponents with regard to the exigencies of any other system; and, consequently, they would in some cases have had so few matches to count for competition purposes by the divisional method as to possess no chance.of getting a sufficient surplus or deficit of points to put them at either extremity of their table, and so obtain transference to the next. In the Competition Proper, as re-ordered, this has rarely occurred, and would never have mattered. A club that deliberately sought safety from relegation by this means (if any such can be imagined) would pay the penalty in debarring itself to an equal extent from any prospect of attaining the Championship; whilst, whatever the weak­ ness of a club so sheltered, any other club that fell below it would have the consolation of knowing it was at least also worthy of the fate in store for it. But, in reality, the accidental provision of such a short match- list would never have availed to stay reduc­ tion, and clubs would actually have gone down with a record of only six finished games in eight or ten arranged, in spite of most of the other clubs playing through a nearly complete quantum, as they have generally done in this section. In the Qualifying Division the case is different, and, except that the leaders have always at any rate deserved a trial in the Proper Competition, the “ placing” has often had to be done by such inadequate means as not to be worth much regard. The Minor Champions (except when definitely promoted) have taken no part in first-class company at all, so that all the Qualifying tables are in ­ complete from the outset. And the remain­ ing counties have so often neglected meeting each other that in one ease Gloucester, in 1895, had to be awarded a pointage of 0 on no matches played in its section of the com­ petition whatever! Gloucester, in fact, played only six countable matches, and Kent eight, in the first three years during which each would have tarried in the Qualifying Division. Yet the system stands this strain so well that each would have regained its position in spite of the weaker clubs con­ tending with it having undertaken many more matches. The only real injustice, in fact, seems to be done to Worcester, whose paucity of arrangements with the lower counties would have kept the M idland men out of the Competition all along : a circum­ stance they would undoubtedly have remedied if the Divisional arrangement had been actually in being. As the most convenient period to com­ mence the reconstruction, 1894 was taken, though an examination of the accompanying tables reveals the extraordinary coincidence that, if the end of the century had been selected instead, the subsequent results would have been precisely the same. F o r the nine leading counties of 1900, by the M.C.C. mode of reckoning, were exactly those that would have gone into the next year’s Competition Proper, to start the new century, if the Divisional scheme had been in operation for the previous seven years. But 1894 points a special moral. T ill that date the whole competition had been con­ ducted on the very lines that the Competi­ tion Proper would have continued. Nine first-class counties were admitted and each, generally meeting every other, was awarded its position by a simple “ pointage,” repre­ senting the balance of wins over losses, or vice v e n d , that it sustained. Nothing could have been fairer or simpler so long as those counties were the pick of the bunch. Several excluded counties, however, had been showing form that stood comparison with that of some of those included, and their claims to advancement were being urged by a bevy of supporters. The present writer was not among them, though for some years previously he had advocated the adoption of a system that would automati­ cally have provided for such a contingency, and had blamed the “ informal, infirm, and improvident” conduct that could not fore­ stall such an occasion. During the previous autumn, indeed,* he had suggested an arrangement of “ Test Matches,” whereby promotion and relegation would have been accomplished by orderly means, whilst the number of competitors in the first of three divisions of the Counties would have been elastic. Instead of adopting such a system, or any probationary method at all, the authorities suddenly gave way to clamour and, as if to spite criticism, admitted several immature claims to front-rank and threw the whole competition out of gear. In fact it became fashionable to disparage the “ hateful ” Championship altogether. B y 1895, five new claimants (who, however superior to some others, were certainly not in the first flight), had been shovelled into the contest for chief honours, and its straightforward methods had perforce to be sacrificed for a disorderly, disjointed, unequal and uncon­ vincing competition, perhaps fitly culm ina­ ting in that column of “ percentages ” which the late Mr. G. Lacy described as a piece of “ profound imbecility.” Such, even aggra­ vated by further extension and consequent inequality, is the arrangement in vogue to this day of the chief competition in con­ nection with the most ancient, clean, and dignified of English games. Let us suppose that, instead of breaking to then present claims, the M.C.C. had bent Itself to future needs, and had formulated a scheme whereby the Championship Proper could have continued on pre-existing lines, except for the annual substitution of a new entrant that had earned its title, in place of one that had failed to retain it; then the accompanying tables form an index to how the subsequent history of tbe Championship would have had to be rewritten. The tables show, by the results of matches actually * In the “ Sportsman ” of 27th September, 1893, and a little later in the “ Cricket Field.” T he C hampionship T a bles , divisionally reconstructed . 1894. 1895. 1896. 1867. 1898. 1899. 1900. 1901. 1902. 1903. 1904. 1905. 1906. 1907. 1908. 1909. *Sy. 11 tLa. 8 *Y. 6 tSy. 6 *Y. 6 tM. 5 *Y. 8 *Y. 9 *Y. 10 tSx. 5 *La. 7 *Y. 0 *K. - 6 *Ng. 6 *Y. 9 *K. 5 tY. 10 *Sy. 7 tSy. 5 *La. 5 tG. 5 *Sy. 4 tLa. 3 tM. 3 tWa. 2 tY. 3 tM. 4 tLa. 6 tY. 6 tY. 3 tK. 3 tLa. 5 o M. 3 tv . 5 tM. 4 tv. 3 M. 2 tLa. 3 tM. 0 tLa. 1 tLa. 1 ♦M. 2 tY. 2 tSx. 5 I-Sy. 4 tSy. 2 tSy. 3 n . 3 La. 0 tM. 0 tLa. 2 tE. 3 Sy. 1 tY. 3 tSy. -1 tSx. 1 tSx. 1 1La. 1 tNg. 2 tLe. 0 tLa. 2 tLa. 1 tLa. 1 tSy. 0 <o J K. 0 tst. 0 tNg. 2 |M. -2 La. 1 tE. -2 tG. -1 tK. -1 M. 0 tK. 0 tWa. 1 M. -2 tNg. 2 1M. 0 tM. 0 ISx. - 1 6(5 St. - 1 t Wa. 3 St. 3 Ng. -3 E. 1 tK. -3 tNg. -1 tWa. -1 tNg. 0 tWa. 0 tK. - 1 N g.-2 tWa. - 1 tK. -2 tH. - 2 tM. - 2 o N g.- 4 Ng. 5 Wa. 3 St. -3 Ng. 2 Ng. -3 tK. -2 tN g .-3 tK. -2 tNg. 0 tSx. - 2 tWa. - 2 M. - 3 H. -2 Wa. - 3 tH. - 3 O Sx. - 8 Sx. 5 UL 3 tWa. -4 Wa. 4 tG. -3 tSx. -2 G. -4 H. -5 Sy. - 5 E. - 5 tK. -4 Sx. - 7 tWa. - 3 +*g. - 4 N g.- 3 G. -11 K. 7 Sx. 0 tH. -5 St. 8 tWa. -4 E. -4 tSy. -5 G. -7 H. 0 Sy. - 8 E. -7 Le. - 9 Sx. -5 Le. - 7 Wa. - 4 ( Wa. 2 H. 2 tE. 2 tG. 2 tK. 1 f3x. 4 tWa. 3 tH. 4 tSy. 2 tE. 2 tLe. 3 tSy. 6 tH. 5 Le. 5 tSx. 5 tNr. 2 2 § D. 2 tO. 0 tK. 0 tSx. 1 tSx. 1 II. 0 St. 2 Wo. 4 tWo. 1 St. 2 tG. 1 tWo. 1 tE. 3 tWo. 3 tWo. 2 tWo. 2 E. - 2 tD. 0 tL>. 0 Le. ] tl>. 1 Le. 0 D. 1 E. 2 I). 0 (Wo. 1 St. 1 tG. 1 St. 1 tE. 2 E. .2 E. 2 L e.- 2 tJfi. '* G. 0 1). -1 Le. 1 D. -1 Le. 0 Le. -1 tst. - 1 D. 1 Wo. 0 St. -1 tG. 0 St. 0 G. 0 St. 1 Le. 2 Le. 2 K. -3 H. - 2 Wo. -1 Wo. 0 St. -3 E. -1 G. 2 D. 1 Nr. -1 Nr. - 1 G. -2 D. - 2 Le. 0 6*0 St. -2 H. -6 D. -6 Le. -1 Le. - 2 H. - 4 D. -3 Wo. - 2 Nr. -4 Nr. - 3 G. - 3 H. -3 D. - 0 D. -4 St. - 4 D. - 4 * Indicates the Champion County, and f the next 8 leaders in the M.C.C. table, each year. In 1898, it may be noted, Warwick, Derby and Sussex tied for the 9th place. The abbreviation of County names to one or two letters requires no explanation. [It may be observed that the tables for 1908-9 do not correspond exactly with those given in the last two November issues of C r ic k e t . The composition of divisions in those cases was derived from the M.C.C.’s ordering of 1907. In the above tables it has been consequentially obtained from the position in 1894. If the former were now adopted, Worcester would supersede Notts in the 1910 Competition Proper, exactly aa if the 9 leading Counties in the authorized Championship of 1909 had boon selected ; and Northants displaces Warwick in either case.]