Cricket 1910

3 H CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. A u g u s t 4, 1910. rendered Warwickshire for over seventeen years. I n the match mentioned F. R. Foster, who has given promise of developing into one of the best bowlers the Gentlemen have possessed for some years, scored 77 in his first innings and 68 in his second. For many reasons—tbe chief being that batsmen are plentiful and amateur bowlers of high class scarce—it is to be hoped that he will not allow his batting to develop at the expense of his bowling. Only in comparatively few instances in these days of heavy programmes has a cricketer proved a mainstay of his side with both bat and ball, and it is noticeable that in the match wherein Foster scored so well he took only three wickets and at a cost of nearly thirty-two runs each. U n d e r the heading “ A Costly Game,” the Scottish R eferee says :— “ The vagaries of cricket balls have been the subject of endless paragraphs, but not many balls have succeeded in shutting down a cotton mill. An amateur game of cricket was the means of stopping the big mills of the Slater Cotton Company at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, U .S.A., and throwing several hundred hands into idleness for the remainder of the day. The power is transmitted between the two mills by means of a large rope cable, and a ball was sent by the batsman on to the cable and drawn into the pulley. This caused some of the strands of the cable to part, shutting off the power and stopping the works until the injury had been repaired.” D u r in g the present month Gloucester­ shire will be assisted by several well-known amateurs, the majority of whom find it difficult, if not impossible, to appear in county cricket before August. Among those whom it is expected to find help­ ing the side are C. L. Townsend, W . M. Brownlee, A. W . and F. B. Roberts, F. H . B. Champain, M. G. Salter and W . S. A. Brown. Recital of the names makes one regret that the players are not available throughout the season. P l a y in g at Stevenage against Mr. Barnett Smith’s X I. on July 27th, W . Shelford, the Hertfordshire cricketer, took all ten wickets for 30 runs in an innings of 114. Stevenage, however, were beaten by 47 runs. L ik e Hampstead a fortnight before, Beddington and Sutton have won every match played during their Week. It was, therefore, quite in the eternal fitness of things that the sides should meet— on the former’s ground— last Monday. That match Beddington, who, although only a small club are one of the strongest in Surrey, won by nine wickets, owing chiefly to the fine bowling o f G. Reay and plucky, hard-hit innings by R. S. Nightingale and W . Windsor. As a curiosity it may be mentioned that in each o f their first four matches— with Mr. Hamish Stuart’s X I., Stoics, Wanderers and Surrey Club and Ground, Beddington won the toss and put their opponents in. Twice on each day, too, Mr. G. Nixon Dick, an octogenarian Vice-President of the Club, walked the mile and three-quarters between his house and the ground. C o n g r a t u l a t io n s to Lord Dalmeny upon the birth o f a son and heir at 38, Berkeley Square on Monday last. Many will see a favourable sign in the fact that Tom Hayward’s highest score of the year was made on the same day. A t the Oval on Tuesday Surrey beat Nottinghamshire by an innings and 143 runs, and thereby obtained ample revenge for their defeat earlier in the season at Trent Bridge. All the luck, however, favoured the home side, who won the match by winning the toss and batting during almost the whole of Monday. Rain during the first night practically made the result a foregone conclusion, and Notts, may be able to derive some comfort from the knowledge that the boot would in all probability have been on the other leg had the toss resulted differently. The match retained almost all its old fascination for the Bank-Holiday public, over 20,000 persons watching the play ,on the Monday. P l a y in g for Royal Marine Artillery v. St. Simon’s, at Eastney on Saturday, Gunner Rawstron took all ten wickets for 42 runs in a total of 93. G il b e r t J esso p held the cricket stage at Bristol to himself for an hour and a-quarter on Monday, during which time he made 103 of the 150 scored. He received 74 balls and scored off 47 of them, his chief hits being a 6, a 5 and ten 4’s. A magnificent catch on the fringe of the boundary brought about his dismissal— all too soon from the point of view of the spectators. R. E . F o s t e r took part in all four matches played in the Longford Week, commencing on July 25th. H is scores were 47 v. Osmaston, 11 v. Notts Amateurs, 1 and 11 v. J. Bamford’s X I., and 88 v. County Footballers Eleven. H . P. C h a p l in , the popular Sussex captain, will have very good cause to remember the August Bank Holiday of the present year of Grace— with a big, big G—seeing that he scored 172 not out at the expense of the Hampshire bowlers at Southampton. It was a most timely innings, for Sussex had five wickets down for 117, but, thanks largely to him, the remaining five added 301. It was his first three-figure innings in a first-class match, and one hopes that it will prove the first of many, for he is a free hitter and a fast scorer and a player it is good to watch. T h r r e were two rather remarkable partnerships for the tenth wicket on Monday. At Southampton H. P. Chaplin and Butt put on 99 together for Sussex v. Hampshire, and at Leyton, for Essex against Derbyshire, C. P. McGahey and Tremlin added 92 after nine wickets were down for 134. A m a tc h played on Monday afternoon at South Croydon was remarkable from the fact that in one eleven ten brothers named Parris played, the youngest being 19 years o f age. They gave a good account of themselves by getting 159 runs in two innings against their opponents, the Parkside C.C., whose total was 77. K e n t , after defeating Worcestershire in a couple o f days, have outplayed Middlesex in the first of their matches in the Canterbury Week. Rain during Monday night had not a little to do with the latter result, but “ Fortune favours the brave ” and few people will begrudge Kent the stroke of luck which they experienced, though all would have preferred to see the match played out with the conditions the same for both sides. A remarkable thing about the game was that Seymour should play an innings of 193, for it had been decided originally that he should stand out in order to make room for J. R. Mason, and it was owing to the inability of Fielder to play— owing to indisposition— that he kept his place in the side. P r o b a b l y most people expected to find Lancashire outplaying Yorkshire in Sharp’s benefit match at Old Trafford this week, but surely none can have imagined that they would have shown such superiority at all points. The re­ appearance of Brearley, as welcome as it proved effective, strengthened the side enormously, and with Spooner playing a not-out innings of 200 and Sharp and Hornby also scoring well it is not sur­ prising that Yorkshire were outclassed. Spooner’s score is the largest ever made in the long series of matches between the two counties, but it will not rank as one of his best displays, useful and skilful though it was. He was ill at ease and was missed twice on the first evening, and, although he was in splendid form on the second day, the chances he offered must be taken into consideration when estimating the merits of his innings. OB ITUARY . W . W atts . Walter Watts, for 50 years and until 1908 custodian of the University Cricket Ground at Cambridge, died on Saturday in his eighty - fourth year. He was born at Wimpole, in Cambridgeshire, on March 7th, 1827, and was rather late in coming to the front as a cricketer, being 39 years of age when he made his first appearance for his native county. He was a useful slow round­ armed bowler and generally fielded at short- leg. In 1891 the match between Cambridge University and Mr. C. I. Thornton’s Eleven was played for his benefit. George Watts, who has assisted Surrey and Cambridgeshire, is his son. The deceased was buried at Cambridge on Tuesday.