Cricket 1911

570 RUGBY FOOTBALL AND CRICKET. N ovem ber 4 ,1911. now I think I have told you all that is worth telling about my own doings.” •‘ Is cricket making much progress in the Argentine? ” “ I am afraid I cannot truthfully say it is going ahead by leaps and bounds. The quality of the cricket played is certainly superior to what it was a decade ago, while the wickets are decidedly better. The chief drawback is the lack of interest shown in the game at our schools and colleges. The natives have not taken kindly to cricket and very few of them play it, and, with the exception of St. George’s College, Quilmes, and Lomas Academy, we have practically no educational establishments which give any encouragement to the game at all. The result is that we have comparatively few school­ boys training-on to take their places in the championship teams, and for new blood the clubs have to rely almost entirely on men from home coming out to take up positions in the banks, railways, <Sc. Even so, it is surprising what a small proportion of good cricketers are to be found among the new arrivals. We want a few more Garnetts to give the game a good fillip.” “ What cricket competitions have you ? ” “ The Argentine Cricket Championships, with three divisions, there being seven teams in the first—Buenos Aires, Belgrnno, Hurlingham, Lomas, San Isidro, Quilmes and the “ B ags” (by which appellation the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway team is known)—a like number in the second, and four in the third. Then the Central Argentine and Southern Railways have inter­ departmental competitions, and there is the Saturday Afternoon League, which provides practice for a number of players able to get away from business, the Championship matches being of course all played on Sundays and Bank Holidays.” “ And the North v. South match ? ” “ This is, of course, our great annual game, beiDg played during the Carnival holidays (three days). Previous to this match, which is to all intents and purposes a trial of strength between the pick of Buenos Aires and provincial players, or men from “ The Camp,” as we call it, there is the Cricket Week, which enables up-country players to get a little, practice before the great game comes off. Tbis season, thanks chiefly to some magnificent bowling by P. A. Foy, late of Bedford Grammar School and County, Garnett’s team (the North) gained their first victory for some years, and a very narrow one, too— by 21 runs.” “ What are your wickets like ? ” “ Variable. At Hurlingham one can always be sure of a splendid wicket, thanks to the tender care bestowed on it by W . Lacey, an old Nottingham man, who is in charge ; at Lomas, too, good pitches are the rule, but the others are sometimes found wanting, although we rarely get a really bad wicket to play on. Matting has disappeared now, except in some provincial towns, and the Championship games are always played on turf.” “ Who are the men chiefly identified with Argentine cricket?” “ J. 0 . Anderson, of Hertfordshire, and J. Gifford, who have both been interviewed in your columns, have done much for the game, and of the old brigade Messrs. B. W. Gardom and S. Carlisle have always been keen supporters of it. Others one might mention are R. W. Rudd, of Lomas, Herbert Dom ing, still our crack bowler, R. W . and R. E . H. Anderson, J. J. Dowson, and the Leaches, of “ North ” fame, but, given from memory, this cannot by any means be considered an exhaustive list.” “ You say you have no professionals there ? ” “ There is Lacey, of Hurlingham, but he is general factotum at the club and gives but a small proportion of his time to cricket. R. Brooking and W . James have also done a little in the shape of coaching, but beyond Lacey there is no regular professional, and he is the only one allowed to play in Championship matches. Lees was out for a season years ago, and before that B.A.C.C. had a professional called Lord, but it cannot be denied that the experiment of bringing out professionals is not very successful, and this I think is due to the lack of opportunities for practice, there being no twilight and it is never possible to play after 6 45 or 7. It takes half-an-hour to get from the city to the nearest ground, so that for the business man evening cricket is almost impossible. Early morning practice is unsatisfactory owing to the wet ground, the result of heavy dew, and Sundays are taken up with matches, so that, except for gentlemen of leisure, the advantages of professional coaching are difficult to obtain, even when we have the pro.” “ I suppose curious incidents occur occasionally in your matches ? ” “ Oh, yes, we get a good many. I think the most amusing I have seen was in a railway inter-departmental match. The players are always keen, but many have but a limited knowledge of the game. A bowler, whom we will call A, had a bet with his friend B that he would dismiss him without scoring. So keen was A that directly B arrived at the wicket and had taken guard, he whizzed a fast one down. B placed it over point’s head for a certain brace only to find that the batsman at the other end had gone to the pavilion for a glove. Great glee amongst the fielding team and spectators, who were all aware of the bet. His vis-a-vis having returned, B prepared for A ’s next delivery, which was also despatched nearly to the boundary. But the umpire had called “ no ball” and the other batsman had refused to run, maintaining that the ball was dead! The next ball clean-bowled B, who retired crestfallen to the pavilion, the score sheet reading: “ B, bowled A, 0.” So B had lost his bet! This is an absolute fact. © b i tm t r r r . Mr. E. H. ASH. Mr. Edwin Ash, who acted as manager of Mr. W. W . Read’s team in South Africa in 1891-2, died at Richmond on October 25th. He was the first secretary of the Rugby Football Union and played a prominent part in the foundation of the Richmond F.C. He was born in 1844. ---------- M e . D. D. BONE. Mr. David Drummond Bone, who died at Ayr last week in his seventy-first year, was a well-known Scottish journalist. He was the author of Fifty Years’ Reminiscences of Scottish Cricket. M r . D. C. DAVEY. South Africa has lost one of its crack cricketers of the last generation in the person of Mr. Darnton Charles (“ Don ” ) Davey, who died suddenly of heart disease at Durban on Saturday, October 7th. Up to the date of his death he was reckoned among the leading cricket entities of Natal, and as a mark of respect to his memory all matches for that Saturday afternoon were promptly cancelled. Photo by] [The Bower Studios, Durban* The late Mr. D. C. DAVEY. Don Davey was not an Afrikander by birth. Bom at Mansfield, Notts., on the 7th of July, 1856, he was a native of a county even then in the foremost cricket rank. He was educated at Colchester, and took to the game very early. As a boy of fifteen he is said to have played for Twenty-two of Witham against the U.S.E.E., but a hurried search through the book of Haygarth from 1870 to 1873 fails to verify this statement, and thus the only scrap of information as to the dead player’s doings in England is