Cricket 1912

100 CEICKET: A WEEKLY EECOKD OF THE GAME. M ay 4, 1912. T he men ai'3 all fit and, well, and say that they had so smooth a passage that those among them who had no previous experience of ocean voyaging really have not found out yet whether they are good sailors or n o t ! G o r d o n W h it e sailed from Cape Town on the Waimer Castle on April 24th, so that he will bo in England in plenty of time for the first test. Llewellyn has started the season in great form ; he played a brilliant innings of 100 and took 9 wickets for 23 for Accrington v. Bacup on April 20, and a week later again did well in the return match between the same sides. J. T. N e w s t e a d , the Yorkshire cricketer who a few years ago looked like getting test honours, is now with Rishton in the Lancashire League. He too made a good start— 70, and 3 wickets for 33. Walter Lees, for Lower- house, had 8 wickets for 43 v. Church. N o r t h a m p t o n sh ir e does not retain the services of Harold Ellis, of whose wicket-keeping abilities much was thought two or three years back. A trial as stumper will be given to a son of Alfred Berwick, who used to play for the county as a left-hand medium pace bowler. The young man plays for Glossop, and is said to be a good forcing bat. L. Gillett, an old Wellingburian, who has been showing fine all-round form in cricket in the Isle of Wight, is likely to play for the county—whether he can do so immediately depends upon his qualification, of course. His schooldays at Wellingborough would not qualify him. R. S. (Suffolk) sends me some tables which I should have been glad to print had space permitted. I. cannot give them in full : but I cull from them some items of special interest. Thus : John Hobbs was not once bowled in the five test matches down under ; he was seven times caught, once l.b.w. Rhodes was only bowled once. On the other side Armstrong was bowled 7 times out of 8. Bardsley 5 out of 7, and Trumper 5 out of 9. The English bowlers had 42 victims bowled, 3 l.b.w., 48 caught, 2 stumped. The Australians had 24 bowled, 4 l.b.w., 45 caught, 2 stumped. The marked disparity in the number bowled is in itself a high tribute to the deadliness o! Foster, Barnes, and Douglas. Foster bowled 17, Barnes 13, Douglas 7. Foster had 14 caught off him, one stumped. Barnes had 17 caught, besides two c. and b., and two l.b.w. Douglas had 7 caught (one of them c. and b.), and one l.b.w. On the other side Hordern’s figures were 14 bowled, 15 caught (including 2 c. and b.), two l.b.w., one stumped ; Cotter’s two bowled, 9 caught, one l.b.w. ; Armstrong’s 3 bowled, 5 caught, one l.b.w. A t Coseley last Saturday the Rev. W . Spencer, who had generously presented a pavilion to the local cricket club dropped dead while introducing Colonel Hickman, M.P., who was to open it. Mr. Spencer was a septua­ genarian. Mr. F. F. K i o t j . y , of Now York, writes me that .T. B. Thayer, the famous Philadelphian cricketer, perished in the Titanic disaster. But I think this is a mistake. The name of J. B. Thayer, jun., was included in the list of survivors ; and the cricketer was J. B. Thayer, jun., when here in 1884. It is just possible that it was his son who escaped, but I think it more likely that it was his father who went down, and therefore defer any obituary notice— I hope for many years. T h e policy of some editors is never to admit a mistake —unless refusal to admit it means an action for libel ! I don’t believe in this policy. No one nowadays is un­ sophisticated enough to regard the Press as infallible. Anyway, if the “ D a il y -------” (wild horses could not drag me to the filling of that blank !) is infallible, C r ic k e t is not. Indeed, I am thinking of instituting a department headed “ Sackcloth and Ashes.” T h ro u g h misreading the notes of a valued correspon­ dent, I wrote what read like a suggestion that Mr. Vivian Woodward had been shunted by the Spencer C.C. Such was not the case. He retired, to everyone’s regret, and could not be prevailed upon to resume office ; it was he who induced Mr. Macbeth to succeed him as captain. I am glad to make the amende honorable, for, as our corres­ pondent points out, the Spencer C.C., though numbering nearly 300 members, is remarkably free from bickerings, and the misstatement would be calculated to cause annoy­ ance. There was also an error in the name of one of the joint Hon. Secs. It should be Mr. C. T. Coggin, not “ Coffin.” (Mr. Printer, Mr. P rinter! “ Sir,” says Mr. Printer, “ you read a proof.” True. PeccavH) A n o t h e r error, not my own, crept into the obituary notice of C r ic k e t ’ s old friend, Mr. W . O. Hewlett. Though ho had many ties with the school on the hill, at which he was educated, Mr. Hewlett was never a master at Harrow. T h e name given in last week’s Century List as C. H. Moyes (Mar. 16) should have been A. G. Moyes. And Ardingly is Ardingly College, not School. I think that is all for the present; but really that special department looks needed ! Overseas Cricket. WELLINGTON v. MARLBOROUGH. Marlborough is one of the weaker cricket provinces in New Zealand, and it was really a second team, mainly composed of colts, which Wellington put in to the field against it. F. A. Laws was the only old representative playing, though three or four of the others have appeared before in a match or two, Finlayson in half-a-dozen or so. In spite of this, the play went all one way. The visitors’ wickets foil with regularity and despatch before Grimmett and Finlayson, and 19 was the longest stand of the innings. Wellington had three down for 25 ; but then Baker and Grace added 61 for the fourth, and later Burton and Fin­ layson made 119 for the sixth. Burton is«the son of George Burton, who played for Wellington fifteen or twenty years ago, making 49 against the Fijians in 1894-5, and 63 v. Canterbury three years later. The youngster played a particularly good innings. He should go far. Seven bowlers were tried in Marlborough’s second ; but there was slight need for this, the only approach to a stand being 30 for the fourth wicket by Chisholm and .Jackson. Much is hoped of Robinson, a young fast bowler, who got no chance in the first innings, and was not suited by the drying wicket in the second. New Zealand could do with a real express man, ami, Wellington enthusiasts think it possible Robinson may fill the place. F rom V a r io u s Q u a r t e r s . Possibly encouraged by the recognition given them by “ Wisden ” — their match with the South Africans figured with state and test games in the “ eleven a side averages ” —• Toowoomba actually played and beat the N.S. Wales team on its way back from Brisbane ! But Toowoomba had Eric Barbour, whose father is head master of the local Grammar School, and he made all the difference. If he had been playing for the state eleven he would probably not have had a chance at the bowling crease at all. For Toowoomba he had 5 for 12 and 9 for 33 ! The wicket was funny after rain, and the scoring ruled very small—the local men making 64 and 147, the N.S.W. team 81 and 80. B. J. Folkard took 8 wickets for 38. In a special article this week the game in the prairie provinces of Canada is dealt with. But it is not only in Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan that cricket is boom ­ ing. In British Columbia, where it was played long before those provinces existed as such, it goes ahead rapidly, and the Victoria Club is already making arrangements to send a representative team to England in 1913. The tour will doubtless be on the lines of those undertaken b y the Toronto Zingari in 1910, by the Germantown C.C. in 1911, and by the Philadelphia C.C. this year. We shall also in all probability have a visit from the University of Penn­ sylvania’s team next season.