Cricket 1911

D ecember 2* 1911. EUGBY FOOTBALL AND CEICKET. 587 pavilion ©ossip. The abstract and brief chronicle of the time. — Hamlet. N the match between South Melbourne and Fitzroy, on the latter’s ground on October 14th, Harry Trott shaped very well indeed for 32, and did rare good service for his side in the field. In his report of the Fitzroy innings, Felix said :—“ M'Kenzie was brilliantly caught, left-handed, low down at point, by Harry Trott, off H. Kelly. The stroke had such force on that the sound of the ball striking Trott’s palm could be heard in the press-box. The veteran was loudly applauded in recognition of his superb catch, and there werecries of “ Good old Harry,” “ Not done yet.” He rubbed hispalm a good few times after that catch. He also caught Delves, who made 14 in promising style.” Last season, we may add, Trott headed both batting and bowling averages of the S.M.C.C., scoring 469 runs with an average of 78T6 and taking a dozen wickets at a cost of 18-75 apiece. R e f e r e n c e to the South Melbourne 0 . C . reminds us that that club has recently received a decided acquisition to its strength in the person of Mr. H. O. Smith, the Tas­ manian batsman, who last season had an average of 60‘57 for eighteen innings. He made three centuries, one of them against the South Africans. P l a y i n g at Patiala on October 15th and 20th, for Patiala v. King’s Dragoon Guards, Tarrant scored 7 and 110 and took nine wickets in the second innings of the oppo­ sition. The Maharaja played a good game for 60, and Patiala won comfortably by 192 runs. D u r i n g the Christmas holidays the Madras C. C. will play a series of matches in Ceylon. The last time that the club undertook a similar tour was in 1907. On Saturday, October 28th, Mr. C. P. Carter, the left-handed bowler who represented the Transvaal in last year’s Currie Cup Tournament but has since returned to his old home in Natal, did a fine performance for Zingari v. Greyville at Durban, taking 8 wickets for 39 runs. Mr. Basil Siedle, quite a youngster but already a repre­ sentative Rugger footballer for Natal, was top scorer in Durban for the day—a bad one for cricket, with a drizzling rain and a wretched light—with 38 for the Escombe Club ; and good judges think that this young player should go far. George Cox, of Sussex, made 19 for the'same side, and bowled five overs without taking a wicket. M r . F. L e R o u x , who last season captained Eastern Province, has gone back to the Rand, and lately scored 71 for Wanderers v. Wanderers “ A ” team at Johannesburg. In spite of being handicapped by a strain L e Roux bowled with great success in the Tournament at Durban last March, and if fit and well he should be in the running for a place in the South African team, for he is a really good bat, and as a bowler has probably more pace than any of the other candidates for Mr. Kotze’s vacant place. M r . S . H. S a v i l l e , of Cambridge University and Middlesex cricket fame, must surely have set up an indi­ vidual record for a hockey match of class when for Cam­ bridge against Lincolnshire lately he scored as many as fourteen goals. T h e Oakham School Magazine for the Christmas Term has lately reached us, and the School averages will appear with others very shortly. Here we refer to it because of something that struck us in reading the Speech Day report. Mr. H. R. Finch, one of the Trustees, stated that 35 years ago there were at Oakham one master and two boys ! Since then the School has gone ahead till it holds high rank among the smaller public schools, shows many scholastic successes, can put into the field a good cricket eleven, and more than holds its own at Rugger. The greater part of the Magazine consists of a full report of the cricket season, with excellent “ Characters of the Players,” and full scores of matches. The school has a good hitter in S. H. G. Humfrey, a batsman of steadier type in C. E. Sills, and an excellent left-hand bowler in J. W. Mason. J. P. Brom- head, a useful member of the eleven, had to go up for prizes no fewer than five times on Special Day, one notes. I t can hardly be a secret that the Australian State captain of last season who is contributing such excellent cricket articles to the “ British Australasian ” is Mr. John S. Hutcheon, of Queensland, since Messrs. Hill (South Australia), Armstrong (Victoria), Trumper (N.S.W.) and Hawson (Tasmania) are all down “ under ” still, and West Australia did not play a match in 1910-11. The articles are much on the same lines as Mr. Le Couteur’s, and the last of them contains some most interesting notes about Messrs. B. Kortlang, D. Smith, J. H. Kyle, T. J. Matthews, and others. Mr. Kyle, we learn, is a very big massive fellow—“ about a yard wide ” —and not far short of being a really fast bowler, but comparatively plain. Mr. Matthews is a little man, right hand slow to medium as a bowler, and an effective if rather ungainly bat. But it is not fair to pick out all the plums from Mr. Hutcheon’s article. T h e great surprise in the constitution of the New South Wales team v. the M.C.C. side was not the inclusion of Mr. S. E. Gregory—he is like Tennyson’s brook, and goes on for ever—but the omission of Mr. Charles Kelleway. In the absence of any news to the contrary, one can only assume that he is crocked, for after his fine work against South Africa last year it is difficult to see how Messrs. Barbour, McElhone, Minnett and Folkard, good players as they undoubtedly are, could be preferred to him, since he started the season well for his club. Another good man left out is Mr. S. II. Emery. Mr. B. .T. Folkard, who got his place against the South Africans for his batting, and astonished everybody by a sensational bowling feat, has been in great form this season, scoring several centuries in first-grade club cricket—as has Mr. Noble, who seems to stick to his expressed determination to play no more first-class cricket. Two portraits of the Master of Trinity College, Cam­ bridge,—Dr. Montagu Butler who was in the Harrow X I. in 1851—were presented on Saturday evening—one to the College, to be hung in the Hall, and the other to Mrs. Montagu Butler. Mr. William Orpen is the artist, and the portraits were subscribed for by over seven hundred persons, including the leading members of both universities, past and present Trinity men, and Harrow boys in all parts of England, and in distant lands, as a token of affection and esteem. Mr. Aldis Wright, Vice-Master, made the presen­ tation in presence of a large company. T o m M a r t i n has been appointed ground superinten­ dent at Kennington Oval, in the place of Sam Apted, who has retired on account of ill-health. For over twenty years Martin has been under Apted on the Oval staff. I t is very disappointing that the match at Sydney should have fizzled out in a waterlogged draw. The chief points of interest in it, apart from the regrettable accident to George Gunn, were useful scores by that player himself, Philip Mead and Frank Woolley on the one side, and by Messrs. S. E. Gregory (“ Men may come and men may go, but he goes on for ever”), Roy Minnett and Eric Barbour on the other, and good bowling by Messrs. Foster, Douglas and Cotter. Mr. Gregory, fielding as substitute for the English vice-captain, dismissed Dr. H. V. Hordern by a particularly good catch. By the way, we hear that the Melbourne barrackers say “ J.W.H.T.” stands for “ Johnny-Won’t-Hit-To-Day.” This is ingenious, but rather unkind. T h e loss of Saturday’s gate at Sydney, to say nothing of Tuesday’s—a smaller matter, naturally—is a bad thing for the financial side of the tour; and it is disquieting to learn that Mr,