Cricket 1911

S ept . 2 ,1911 . CEICKET: A WEEKLY EECOED OF THE GAME. 479 WORLD - FAMED. 27 /6 #7% 2 2 / 6 < ^ 0 . Q 9 ^ 18/6 w 16/6 9 4 ^ % V V 14 /6 ^ v ? N l O ^ ■DEMON■ v g ftlV E ,£ / 14/6 READ " The Evolution of a Cricket Bat," O BTA IN A BLE F R EE UPON R EQ U ES T FROM GEO. G. BUSSEY & CO., LTD., 3 6 & 3 8 , QUEEN VICTORIA ST., LONDON. Factories : | Peckham, London. (Elm swell, Suffolk. A g e n t s a l l o v e r t h e W o r ld . Cricket Notches. B y t h e R e v . B . S . H o l m e s . lPECIAL thanks are here given, to Sir Home Gordon for his timely reminder that the old Notts, stumper, Sherwin, played for England. How came I to overlook him ? In more senses than one Sherwin was throughout his long career a very conspicuous figure on the cricket field, and, besides, I knew him intimately and had many a delightful chat with him. In the long ago I sounded several county cricketers as to the meaning of Law 39, all of whom, save Sherwin, could make nothing of it. I recall his graphic explanation of that L aw : “ Y ou see, this is just how it is. Say that you are the damaged batsman and I am your substitute. Well, th en / I have to run for y o u : all you have to do is play the ball. Suppose you have done so and there is an easy run. But in the excitement you forget all about your game leg and run ; I follow you, and we both get to the opposite wicket. But if the stumper puts down the wicket you have left, then out you must go, even though your partner is standing within the crease. Y ou ought to have stopped there. Another time, let’s hope you won’t be caught napping.” A Yorkshireman at the Oval last week asked for my opinion on an umpire’s decision in a club match. To a very fast and erratic bowler one of the batsmen stood a yard outside the crease, and on scoring a run the umpire called ‘ ‘ one short,” contending that he had not begun his run within the crease. Was this a correct decision ? I really cannot say. The case would be quite different if the batsman had left the crease as soon as the bowler started to run. If I had been the umpire the run would have been allowed ; all the same, the umpire might have given a perfectly just decision. What is your verdict ? And then my friend went on to discuss the matter of short runs generally, and in a way one has often heard. Said he, “ If a batsman runs one short run, he must run two short ones ; then why doesn’t the umpire call “ two sh o rt?” T o which I made answer, “ and so he does. Y ou forget that each run is made b y both batsmen ; consequently each batsman’s share of a run is one-half. Now two halves make one ; and so one is the penalty for the two short runs a batsman has made.” Does a cricketer’s interest in the game survive his active cricketing days ? This question has often come into m y mind during the past twenty years. How seldom you see an old professional at a match in which his county is taking part. George Parr, I believe, only once visited Trent Bridge after his retirement, and then under considerable pressure. George Freeman, the prince of fast bowlers, told me that he had not seen a Yorkshire match for several years. Does Abel ever look in at the Oval ? I have not noticed him there once during the present season. When the Gentlemen v. Players match was in progress at Lord’s the other day, I kept hoping that W.G. would revisit the scene of his many triumphs : there would have been no mistaking his well-known figure, and what an ovation he would have received. George Atkinson, once a famous bowler, and a prominent member of the earliest Yorkshire team, was in his latter days in charge of the gate of the Bradford pavilion. Whenever I met him there he used to ask me to have a chat with him about old times, adding, ‘ ‘ You are almost the only man here to-day who remembers Anderson, Iddison, Rowbotham, old Luke and others of my old pals. We might never have lived. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s why we don’t care to come to county matches.” On the other hand, many ama­ teurs continue to haunt cricket grounds all their life. For instance, the late Hon. Bob Grimston ; and is there ever a first-class match at Lord’s when the old Middlesex captain, A. J. Webbe, is not present ? The same with a host of spectators. It is more than fifty years since I witnessed a first-class match, and yet there is no pleasure comparable to that yielded by a match at Lord’s and the Oval. I was chatting with an enthusiast quite recently. He told me that old William Lillywhite, who died in 1854, took him for the first time to Lord’s, and he first visited the Oval soon after the Surrey Club got possession of it. He is living in retirement in St. John’s Wood, will be eighty years of age in a few months, has been a member of the Surrey Club more than forty years, and every day of the season he visits one or other of the famous grounds, being always accompanied by his wife who in her old age is never tired of watching the game. Such enthusiasm is most delightful. A correspondent in North Ballachulish writes : “ I am far away from all books of reference, but is it not a fact that on one August Bank Holiday (I believe it was at the historic match in 1892) Lockwood bowled both Shrewsbury and William Gunn with balls they did not attempt to play ?” A reference to Wisden confirms the accuracy of m y informant. ‘ ‘ Have we ever had a better bowler than Lockwood— on his day ?” Probably not. Almost the finest fast bowling I ever witnessed came from Lockwood in the Gentlemen v. Players match at Lord’s in 1902. He bowled from the pavilion end with the slope to help his off-break, the wicket was perfectly plumb, the Gentlemen at their strongest; yet on a batsman’s wicket Lockwood’s analysis