Cricket 1911

J uly 15, 1911. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OP THE GAME. 345 HAMPSH IRE . Photo by ] [Hawkins &' Co., Brighton. N EWM AN . and Richardson, Another weakness is in the slips. Here the fielding is not up to our best standard and a Lohmann-Abel com ­ bination would indeed be a gift of the gods. with Le Couteur for a time. The experiment failed and is opposed to all the accepted theories—these are nearly all permanent truths except when they are traditional fallacies—of the game. Clearly the plan was against Le Couteur finding a length or developing a trap. Foster again bowled well, but he could not get the same life off the the pitch at the Oval as at Lord’s, while the rise of the ball was more equal. Foster’s field is peculiar, but it suits his bowling, though he was hit much more to the off in front of the wicket at the Oval than at the trial at Lord’s. He should not trouble to have so few men out off and so many oji the leg side on Australian wickets. Le Couteur, when he kept a length, was useful, but he only wanted watching. He never troubled Kinneir. The amateur fielding was good and Fry showed skill in cramping the game of the batsmen. Runs all through had to be made, and if one or two men got out in a way foreign to their usual methods those that came off merited their success. As a candidate for Australia and for the Tests in general, Kinneir came first. He played the soundest cricket of the match, his only fault being a tendency to go for rising balls that was in curious contrast to the restrained deliberation which his scoring strokes showed. If he had left these balls alone and been content to forego the occasional single which he scored through getting above them, his batting would have been perfect and he would neither have given a chance at the wicket when 92 nor have failed to carry his bat through, for he was caught at the wicket from a similar stroke at a similar ball to the delivery off which he was missed. His driving past cover was done with easy grace, while his placing between square and fine leg was admirable. Spooner’s innings was quite as characteristic, but Spooner owed more to fortune than did Kinneir and if all the time lost in changing over for Kinneir were taken into the calculation (not to mention sundry informal intervals) Spooner’s. It was the innings of a highly educated batsman who has fully realised his powers and had a big “ don’t ” before him in the matter of his limitations. Another innings of note was that of A. P. Day. The pity was that he did not go in earlier. As he played he would assuredly have made a century, even though some of his runs were made during the last half-hour of the first day. George Gunn’s off-driving was second to nothing in the match and Fry paid him the compliment of putting Warner out to save the four. It was a thoroughly good game all through and the cricket was worthy of the sides. It should certainly give pause to those pessimists who think that our cricket has deteriorated simply because there are fewer names to conjure witb. We still have giants if we can only get out of the habit of worshipping names and can avoid the point of view of the sheer praiser of the past. But one thing we do lack and that is a fast bowler of the assured class of Lockwood T h e L o r d ’ s M a tc h . Photo by] [Hawkins & Co., Brighton. BROWN. I doubt whether he scored any faster than Kinneir. Neither made much attempt to force runs. The fact that Sharp twice bowled Spooner seemed fortuitous and due to a sudden assertion of the ever present liability to make a mistake in timing a fast ball—a yorker in one case and a good length ball in the other. Warner’ s 91 was just as characteristic an innings as Even to the most blase of critics “ sated with the show ” through constant “ peering art,” there comes a red-letter day, when the cricket rouses him and all his interest is refreshed into new life by the. real antagonism of the batsmen with his eleven material foes and all those incidental chances which make cricket the most delightful blend of luck and skill of all the games of ball. Such a day dawned over Lord’s on Monday and from high noon until the flag was furled we saw all save one batsman struggling and striving for runs on a good wicket and under conditions generally regarded as favourable to batsmen, save for that subtle something—a com­ pound of many factors— the life in the pitch, the slope of the hill, the inspiration of past success—which justifies hope in the bowler and may even warrant him in feeling sanguine of success on the Lord’s wicket. The one exception was Fry, though in justice one should also except Foster, for he played Barnes well even if he were helped to runs by the efforts of Rhodes to secure a long-field catch or a catch from a miss-hit. But it was Fry who dominated the day. He was Fry at his best, Fry the masterful,