Cricket 1910

CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD O THE GAME. JUNE 9 , 1910 . p!4~ 1 ■( ' r 1 > rz r - ! jl | < x » I I | «ea=» jwj—*•- — )M<---- j - =5 ejsmigs “ Together joined in Cricket’s manly toil.”— Byron. No 841. v o l . xxix. THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 1910. o n e p e n n y . CHATS ON THE CRICKET FIELD. Mn. J. W. H. T. DOUGLAS. Force of circumstanccs has made it neces­ sary, or seems to have made it necessary, that Mr. Douglas, who was intended by uat'ire to be a hitter, should have made his fame as a batsman chiefly by his skill in defence. He can drive as hard and cli an as most men, and on occasions has shown that he can make runs veryquickly, lut generally he shows a dogged defence, and playing with a perfectly straight bat is exceedingly difficult to move. His strokes on the leg-side are particularly clean and neat. As a bowler he has his days, and on his day he is nearly irresistible. It would be im­ possible to say that he is of any special pace, for there are times when he is not a fast bowler and times when he is. He is at his very best when the wicket has a little fire in it and there is a slight side wind, for then, bowling at his fastest, he makes the ball a thiDg of life, and, keeping more or less on the wicket, always has the batsmen in difficulties. He is a bowler who, if the proposal to raise the height of the stumps had come into force some years ago, would have bowled down double the num­ ber of wickets now standing to his credit. As he showedso conclusively as recently as last Friday, he is an ideal man to send in first when an uphill game has to be played, for his defence is so strong, and his patience so untiring, that he could, if ne­ cessary, safely be relied on to break the heart of almost any bowler. Against Kent at Can- terbary in 1905 he batted for an hour and a-half for 6 not out when the game had to be saved—a performance that was of the greatest possible value to his side, inasmuch as it proved successful in its object. In one match for Essex he bowled down five of Yorkshire’s wickets in eight balls, and at Hastings last year, when playing for the Gen­ tlemen of the South against the Players of the South, took three wickets in four balls. In 1906, against Kent at Tunbridge Wells, he sent down a curious over in the course of which Seymour played-on to a no-ball, Huish was caught off another, Seymour was missed by Mr. Perrin and Huish was bowled, whilst in the following year, when playing against the South Africans at Leyton, he did some­ thing similar, sending down an over in which he delivered three no-balls, bowled Messrs. S. J. Snooke and J. H. Sinclair, and was hit for four between taking the wickets. Iu 1906 and the two following seasons he made, in strictly first-class matches, 3,174 runs with an average of 26-45and took 266 wickets for 23-34 runs each. On two occasions he has helpei to make over 200 for the first wicket of Essex, and at Blackpool last year he and Albert Knight set up a new record for this country by scoring 284 together for the first wicket against Australian bowlitig. In the world of boxing also Mr. Douglas has gained very high honours; for two years, 1899 and 1901, he was Public Schools Champion, in 1905 he won the Amateur Boxing Championship at the North­ ampton Institute, and in 1908 became Olympic Champion by beating Baker, of Australia, in the final. Mr. Douglas was in the Felsted Eleven for four sea­ sons and captain in his last— 1901. Concerning his cricket there, he said:—“ We had very good wickets to play on— in my opinion, a most essen­ tial thing for school cricketers —and, when I first went there, Mr. T. N. Perkins was one of the masters and coached us. I believe that he acquired a residential qualification for Essex and played for the coun­ ty, but of that I am not quite sure. We also bad a profes­ sional from Nottingham, a man named Harrison, who was most painstaking with our cricket. He was a most accu­ rate bowler, and if he found you had a weak point he would keep on bowling on a particu­ lar spot in order to enable you to overcome the defect. If you asked him to repeat a ball he could do so. Originally I was played for my bowling alone, but one day when my father took down a team against us he happened,' to mention that he considered I was a better batsman than bowler. The consequence was that I was sent in earlier, and managed to make runs as well as take wickets. In my last season my batting average was about 64, and in my last but one 43.” “ Did you play at all before going to Fel­ sted ? ” “ When a small boy I was sent to Moulton Grammar School, a kind of preparatory school in Lincolnshire, where we had a very good cricket master and a good ground. I was sent there because the headmaster was a Photo by] [Hawkins <t- Co., Brighton. MB. J. W. H. T. DOUGLAS.