Cricket 1911

C R IC K ET : a w e e k l y r e c o r d o f t h e g a m e . JU N E 21, 1911. “ Together joined in CricKet’s manly toil.”— Byron. n o . 8 7 3 . v o l . x x x . W E D N E S D A Y , J U N E 2 1 , 1 9 1 1 . p r ic e 2 d. h Chat with /VLr. P. R. fee Couteur. public memory in general is short, and one is not quite sure that the memory of the great army of cricket-lovers is any exception to this rule. But if any man can be sure of cricket immortality, perhaps it is the man who does a really big thing in the University match. One fancies that not even an innings or a bowling performance that wins a test game lends to the player responsible quite the same halo as does this. The University match is an event by itself, the only one of its kind in a season, while a test match is one of three, five, or more. This may be partly the reason, yet it does not explain everything. Possi­ bly it will be better not to attempt explanation. It was the second day of the M.O.C. match at Oxford that I visited the town, and as the tram rolled down the High Street bare-headed under­ graduates with tennis- rackets and in'flannels, on foot or on bicycles, with a sprinkling of others in cap and gown, were to be seen on every side. But in the parks there was but the merest fringe of spec­ tators, mostly sitting on the grass just outside the ropes. Talk of the rurality of Tonbridge or Can­ terbury ! It is nothing to the rurality of the Oxford ground, which has a charm all its own — a charm that must linger Photo by] long in the memories of many an old Dark Blue who may, perhaps, never see it again. The M.C.C’s innings came to a close within ten minutes of my reaching the ground, and within another ten minutes I found myself comfortably seated with Mr. Le Couteur on the cushioned window-seat of a snug little upper room in the pavilion. The Oxford-Australian had gone in first in the first innings ; but he most obligingly consented to ask Mr. Pawson to give him a later place this time, and he and I had the chance of a talk that I, at least, am not likely to forget. Below us the tree-encircled ground, with the shifting tableaux of white-clad figures on the brown-green i sward ; opposite, against the inner wall’ of the room, a long row‘of volumes of Cricket, which made the place very homelike to m e ; and in the window-seat two men who had a lot to say to one another, for the inter­ viewer, himself Australian on his mother’s side, has always had strong Aus­ tralian sympathies, and perhaps that fact helped to put him and the inter­ viewed more speedily en rapport. But it is not what I had to say to Mr. Le Couteur, but what he said to me, that matters. “ The crowd is not a big one to-day, Mr. Le Couteur ? ” “ It is not. But we generally get many more that this. The men turn up in strong force, as a rule, but to-day so many are still occupied with exams. I finished in that way on Wednesday, and very glad I was to be through with it.” “ You have been read­ ing hard this term, I believe ? ” “ Yes. I have only played in one of the matches before this, and I don’t feel at all in form yet. At the same time, I find that one comes to cricket with much keener zest when one does not get After a full week’s cricket I feel that I [Hawkins cl' Co., Brighton, Mr. P. R. Le COUTEUR. too much of it. want a change.” “ Then an Australian tour in England would not suit you ? ” “ I don’t say that. The question is hardly likely to