Cricket 1911

34 0 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. J u ly 1 5 , 1911. county’s well-doing as is Newman. They are a pretty representative quartet—one of the best left-handed batsmen iu the country, who is also quite a useful left-hand bowler, in Mead ; a slashing left-hand bat, fast right-hand bowler, splendid field and good wicket-keeper, in Brown ; a fearless fast-scoring little batsman, unafraid of the off-ball that so many shirk dealing with, and capable slow left-hand bowler, in Remnant; and in Newman a bowler very near England form at his best, though it is to be admitted that he has not been seen quite at his best in most recent matches. R e m n a n t , born in 1884, is the oldest of them, and he is only twenty-seven. Mead has lately passed the twenty-fourth milestone of his life, Brown and Newman have not yet reached theirs. These three were all born in 1887—a golden cricket year, when the summer was a real summer, and scoring ruled higher than ever before, without the aid of over-marled wickets. They came later. In our last issue, on the authority of a Yorkshire corres­ pondent, we published the score of a match between Outwood and Methley in which, playing for the former, a batsman named Hargreaves was stated to have made 114 of a total of 124. Mr. J. R. Hewitt, of Woodlesford, kindly writes :— “ Hargreaves’ 114 not out should read 14 not out, and the total should be 24 and not 124. As I was a spectator at the match, and am an old reader of Cricket, I thought I should be in order in pointing out the error.” Will “ snappers-up of unconsidered trifles ” kindly note ? A l t h o u g h Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, who is now in his eighty-eighth year, was present at the Eton and Harrow match last week, he did not feel equal to attending the annual dinner of I Zingari at the Savoy Hotel on Friday evening. It was felt that the position he would have occupied could not adequately be filled and therefore no chairman officiated. During the course of the evening those present drew up a round Robin expressing hope of a speedy recovery, and there can be no doubt that the document will be numbered amongst Sir Spencer’s most cherished possessions. F or a batsman to score two separate hundreds in a first- class match has become rather a common occurrence during recent years, but it is nevertheless remarkable that the present week should have seen the feat performed by two left-handers in Woolley and Philip Mead. Neither had previously accom­ plished the feat, though as the career of neither has been long this is not to be wondered at. Woolley was on the winning side, and, judging by the form he was showing when the innings was declared, might well have made considerably over 200 in his second essay. In some quarters it has been suggested that the Hampshire captain, in waiting to declare until Mead had made his second hundred, prevented his side from winning, but it must be remembered that at the present time the county’s attack is not strong and that the Leicestershire collapse could not be foreseen. W h il s t taking part in a match at Worksop on Coronation Day, Mr. C. Haydock, who is probably the oldest playing cricketer in England, was struck on the head so severely by the ball that seven stitches had to be put in his forehead. The veteran, despite the weight of seventy-eight years, is out and about again, none the worse for his experience and as keen as ever on the game. He has played for the Worksop Town C.C. for well over sixty years, and as recently as 1909 took all ten wickets in an innings. Several years ago, in a game at Taunton, we saw an old gentleman of 104 go in to bat, whilst at Wey- bridge last autumn a youth of 100 might have been seen at the bowling crease—for the first time in his life. Mr. Haydock, it will be seen, thus has a long way to go before he can set up a record for this particular kind of thing, but we trust he will prove equal to doing so and that we may be there to cheer—if we are not too old. T h e r e has been no more astonishing success during the present season than that obtained by Notts over their old-time rivals, Sussex, at Trent Bridge on Saturday. In a match restricted to three days it is a most unusual thing for a side to be defeated after making over 450 in their first innings. Such, however, was the experience of Sussex last week, when, after scoring 490 and obtaining a lead of 38 on the innings, they were beaten by eight wickets. By the end of the second day only twenty wickets had fallen—for 942 runs, and as the ground was still all in favour of run-getting on the Saturday everything pointed to a draw. But Sussex, as it happened, batted in dis­ appointing fashion and then saw the home side win handsomely against time. S o m e critics there are who appear desirous to give one the impression that they can see further than anyone else through a brick wall, and it must surely have been one such who stated that “ Harrow never did well enough to have a chance of victory ” over Eton last week. The statement, as everyone must be aware, was totally inaccurate, and recalls prophecies—were they by the same “ critic ” ?—to the effect that the last Aus­ tralian team which visited us would stand no chance of winning the Test-match rubber and that the South Africans would carry everything before them in Australia in 1910-11. I n some quarters exception has been taken—quite un­ necessarily, as we think — to the match between Oxford and Cambridge and The Navy and Army counting first-class, the contention being that neither side was quite representative. But the same might be said of many inter-county games, and one would surely not suggest that a match which reckoned in the Championship should be denied first-class rank. The sides which took the field at Portsmouth last week could have given a good game to several leading counties which one might name. M r . F . R. F o ster has accepted the invitation of the M.C.C. to go to Australia, and Kinneir and Iremonger have been asked to join the team. T h e following is a list of those who have totalled four figures up to date, with the date on which each reached his thousandth run:— 1.— Vine (J.)—June 23. 2.— Seymour (Jas.)—June 27. 3.—Hayward(T.W .) —June 27. 4.—Makepeace (H .)—June 29. 5 Denton (D.)—June 29. 6.—C. J. B. Wood—June 30. 7.—E. H. Spooner—July 3. 8.—Rhodes (W .)—July 3. A f e w months ago we gave prominence to a report of a huge partnership for the second wicket in a match at Gisborne, New Zealand. The Colonial newspapers, with an unanimity which was almost sufficiently pronounced to suggest a con­ spiracy of silence, published no details, but the last mail from New Zealand enables us to give full particulars of the occurrence. The match was played at Gisborne on December 2nd and 9th., 1910, and was between the Taruheru C.C. and the Wanderers. The former scored 43 and 34 and were beaten by an innings and 474 runs. The Wanderers made 551 for two wickets and declared, Young (275) and McMahon (226 not out) putting on 518 together for the second wicket. Young hit thirty-seven 4’s and McMahon fifteen. Our informant, Mr. F. B. Bousfield, the honorary secretary of the Wanderers C.C., states that “ The ground is a large one and the boundaries practically precluded any but a phenomenal hit realising more than four runs.” The stand is a record for Colonial cricket, but in England has been exceeded on three occasions—by the 623 for the second wicket of 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers v. Army Service Corps, at the Curragh, in 1895, by Capt. W. C. Oates (313 not out) and Private F. Fitzgerald (287 not out) ; the 603 for the second wicket by A. H. Trevor (338) and G. F. Vernon for Orleans Club v. Rickling Green, at Rickling Green, in 1882 ; and by the 554 for the first wicket of Yorkshire v. Derbyshire, at Chesterfield, in 1898, by Brown (300) and Tunniclifi'e (243). 9.— Sharp (J.)—July 3. 10.—P. F. Warner— July 6. 11.—Whitehead (H.) July 7. 12.— Hobbs (J. B .)—July 8. 13.—Kinneir (S. P.)—July 8. 14.—Mead (C. P.)—July io. 15.— Tarrant—July 11.