Cricket 1911

ATGTTST12 , 19 1 1. CEICKET : A W EEK LY EECOED OF THE GAME. 419 D^rbjJshire /Vlcn. JOHN CHAPMAN, the Derbyshire captain, was born at Frocester Court, near Stonehouse, on March 11, 1879, and is thus of Gloucestershire birth, though his forebears were associated with the Peak County. He was educated at Uppingham (where he was in the eleven in 1895 and 1896, scoring 85 v. Haileybury in the latter year) and at Oriel College, Oxford. He never had a trial in the Dark Blue team ; but it is on record that before going to Eussia in 1901 he played for and captained the Yorkshire Second XI. At that time, however, the big county’s second string did not take part in the Minor Counties’ Championship. He spent some considerable time in Eussia. Eeturning, he played club cricket, and made many long scores ; one presumes that he could have appeared for the Peak County before 1909 if he had possessed the necessary qualification. His first appearance for it was in May of that year, at Derby against Warwickshire, the side in Photoby] [Hawkins&Co., Brighton. Mr. J. CHAPA1AN. opposition to which his best feats have been done. He did not get going in county cricket at on ce; but success was not long deferred, for in his fourth match he scored 52 against Essex at Leyton in circumstances calculated to test his nerves, and in his sixth he hit a most brilliant 198 against Warwickshire at Coventry. After that, luck seemed to desert him, and during the rest of the season his only scores of any note were 39 v. Surrey at Chesterfield and 43 v. Yorkshire at Sheffield. Last season he tools over the captaincy, and if no great measure of success attended the side’s efforts it was not bis fault. His batting was more consistent than in 1909; but one feat stands out red-lettered from the rest. Against Warwickshire at Blackwell, in June, he and Warren saved their side from defeat by a most remark­ able partnership, adding 283 for the ninth wicket in less than three hours. The captain’s share was 165, including two 6’s and nineteen 4’s. In 34 completed innings in 1910 he aggregated 713 runs, average a little over 21. This season he played half-a-score or more of useful innings in the first part of the campaign, but did not show quite at his best till the match with Leicestershire at Chesterfield at the end of July, when he did fine work with 96 and 48. Mr. Chapman is a batsman with a fine variety of strokes, and when set usually scores at a good pace. He is also a capable field, and can bowl as a change, though in that direction he has hardly borne out his early promise. Ernest (otherwise “ Nudger” ) Needham has earned fame as a footballer which has perhaps tended to overshadow his more than considerable abilities as an exponent of the summer game. Born at Newbold Moor, near Sheffield, on June 21, 1873, he first played for Derbyshire in 1901, and was a success from the outset. His initial effort was 57 against the South Africans ; his highest of the season was 72 v. Warwickshire at Derby. I remember seeing him at Worcester in his third m atch; he made a useful score in each innings, fielded grandly in the deep field, and altogether played like a man who had been in county cricket for years, as he might well have been, one fancies, with advantage to Derbyshire. No doubt his football training was largely responsible for his sangfroid. In 1902 he batted very consistently without making any very long score, 66 v. Leicestershire, 59 v. Notts, and 56 v. Surrey being his best. His first century— 131 v. Hants, at Derby— came in 1903, which was not otherwise one of his best years, only one other of his 30 innings reaching the half century. Scores of 72 and 29 in the Sheffield match with Yorkshire represented high-water mark for him Photoby] [Hawkins&Co.,Brighton. ERNEST NEEDHAM. in 1904; in the next year an accident interfered with his cricket, and he played very little; in 1906 he showed remarkably consistent form, and of the 33 innings (one not out) that went to make up his aggregate of 753, seventeen ranged from 21 to 75. Less regularly successful in 1907—not a batsman’s season—he made 119 v. Hants, at Derby, but did not reach 50 on any other occasion. But in 1908 he took a tremendous stride forward. He topped the thousand runs, averaged nearly 29, scored three centuries (all v. Essex, and two of them in one match, at Leyton), and made besides scores of 92*, 58, 57, 53*, 50, and 13 above 20 but under 50. After this, his form in 1909 was rather disappointing; but last season he came again, and, with scores of 159 (v. Leicestershire, at Leicester), 82, and 14 of between 20 and 50, had the highest aggregate (889) and the best average (21’68) of any Derbyshire batsman. This year he has not been blessed with any too much luck. Many of Needham’s runs come from strokes behind the wicket, glances to leg, late cuts, snicks; but he has also a good off-drive. He is, it is hardly necessary to say, a left-hander. Nowadays he fields creditably in the slips, but he was a better man in the country in the days that are dead than he has ever been nearer the wicket. Joseph Humphries, for years past one of the best wicket-keepers