Cricket 1912

M ay 11, 1912. CEICKET: A WEEKLY KECORD OF THE GAME. 119 tournament was on the. knock-out system, he registered 79 v. Orange Free State at Bloemfontein, and 26 and 37 v. Western Province in the final at Johannesburg. In 1904 he came home as captain of the Third South African Team, and managed to squeeze in four matches for Yorkshire. For the Afrikanders his best work was done in the early matches, before some of his comrades had run into form. In the second game he made 70* and 40 v. Worcestershire, in the third 22 and 102* v. Cam­ bridge, in the fourth 82 v. Oxford, and in the seventh 66 v. Middlesex. Scarcely maintaining this standard, he yet played several good innings during the rest of the tour, making 75 against a strong England Eleven at Lord’s, 87* v. Liverpool and District, 60* v. M.C.C., and 57* not out v. Yorkshire. For all matches only Llewellyn (who played seldom) and Tancred figured above him in the batting averages. Since then two English teams have visited South Africa, and four Currie Cup Tournaments have been contested, without his figuring in a single game. But he has kept up his cricket with the Wanderers, and in 1910-1 he hit up 226 against the Pirates, the other chief club of Johannesburg. Some scoffed when his name was included among the list of probables for the present team. He was not in the original selection ; but Percy Sherwell declined ; there was a difficulty as to the cap­ taincy, and Mitchell was called upon. He accepted, and I believe that South Africa will have reason to feel grateful to him for that acceptance. Sibley Snooke has captained the Afrikander team, and Louis Tancred the Transvaal ; but neither is at his best when leading. The big Yorkshireman should be the right man in the right place. It does not seem to me to matter much that he has played no important cricket for seven or eight years. He is an all-round athlete—Rugger international, weight- putter, oarsman, as well as cricketer— and he is quite wonderfully active for so big and weighty a man. Not many of his team will score more runs than he during 1912, I fancy. In the field ? Well, I should hardly think he will be quite the worst there, though I don’t believe that the team generally will be found a weak or slack fielding side, as some have hinted. Here are Mitchell’s figures in first-class cricket in England :— Season Inns. N.o. R. A. H.S. 1894 32 1 678 21.87 92 1895 33 0 914 27.69 E191 1896 15 0 391 26.06 ►110 1897 15 0 570 38.00 [ 133 1898 4 0 240 60.00 c i6 i 1899 56 1 1748 31.78 if194 1901 45 4 1807 44.07 '162* 1902 2 1 84 84.00 55* 1904 37 6 1082 34.90 102* In the principal matches of his three American tours he scored 553 runs in 23 innings (once not out). Owing to the lack of one or two Currie Cup scores I cannot give his full South African figures. J. N. P e n t e l o w . Cricket Fashions. B y “ D u n e d in .” Cricket is the most conservative of games ; for a hundred years or so now there has been little change in the implements used, or in the manner of playing, except in the legalisation first of round-arm and later of over-arm bowling. Of course there have been many minor improve­ ments in bats, balls, pads and gloves ; new strokes have been invented, old ones dropped and revived ; and the modern innovation of googly bowling is notorious. Yet a cricketer of a century ago or of any intervening decade would understand the game of the present day with ease as a spectator, and as a player would soon play his part in it in the class corresponding to the one he took in his own time. It is safe to say, however, that a series of faithful pictures of players in the field, made at intervals of every dozen years or so, would show considerable differences of costume, always carefully observed by cricketers whose desire it is to be smart in appearance as in play. We all know of the* tall hat period of cricket; and of course in the early years of the nineteenth century, before the vogue of trousers, everybody wore knee-breeches, stockings, and shoes with metal buckles ; on one of which latter, according to the Rev. James Pycroft, an unlucky fielder once tore off a finger nail. The tall hat was superseded about the fifties by the “ Oxford bowler,” invented as its name shows to give more room to the arm in delivering the ball. But one cannot stay to trace all the variations of dress during the whole century. All one intends to do here is to give one’s own impression of what one has observed in the last thirty years or so. First, let it be said without offence to the worthies of that day, in the early eighties it was easy to distinguish amateur from professional players in the field ; it was not so much that the flannels of the latter usually were not snow-white, as that almost invariably the top edge of their drawers was turned over that of their trousers ! A few years later the paid player was generally marked by his brown boots ; but more will be said of boots later on. Those earlier years, too, were gorgeous with shirts of many colours, blue, pink, brown, and parti-coloured. Oxford Harlequins regularly wore a shirt of their colours, and a stripe of the same down their trousers. Few people were content with plain white, and fewer still with flannel shirts. Print was the fashion ; and even stiff white shirts were w orn ; the writer vividly remembers one of his college eleven, and a fast bowler too, who played in such a shirt with a high all-round stick-up collar ! These coloured shirts were worn until about the nineties, and were then superseded by white canvas shirts ; some, of course, aro still to be seen, but since 1900 or so practically everyone wears white flannel, which it may be said is alike most becoming and most healthful. The days of coloured shirts were also those of ties ; no one left his shirt neck open ; neat bows of club colours were the commonest wear, but scarves tied in ordinary sailor’s knots—very apt to get in the way—were often seen. It was probably the succession of hot summers in the middle nineties that led to the opening of the shirt at the neck. Another consequence of the same hot summers was that practically everyone wore large white sun hats. In the eighties these were never seen ; even brimless polo caps were worn—see the photograph of the England team at Lord’s in 1884, in which A. (). Steel is shown in one—and nobody thought anything more than an ordinary cap necessary against the sun. Of late years again white hats have practically disappeared, though summers like the last have been just as hot ; instead a handkerchief is tied round the neck. This excellent and rational device—for it really protects the part most liable to sunstroke—was certainly never seen before 1890, and hardly before 1900. Now it is regular on cold and hot days alike. Sweaters again of old were always open at the neck ; later they took the jersey shape, and next blossomed out with huge collars ; the latest variety buttons up the front like a co a t; it is especially suitable to players who wear spectacles, but it may be predicted that before long it will be universal. Blazers have always been worn during the writer’s experience ; the only difference is in their brilliance and variety, and that now most professionals use them as well as amateurs. N ot the least change has been that in foot-coverings. Thirty years ago shoes were in general use ; wiser people and those who played a great deal wore boots; but whether shoes or boots they were mostly of brown leather, or of a combination of leather and canvas. Thus, in a photograph of the Middlesex X I. in 1884 of seven players whose feet are visible five wear brown, two white and brown boots ; in 1891 a similar photograph shows all that can be seen white and brown. The early nineties saw the entrance on the field of white buckskin (or imitation ?) boots and before 1900 they became universal, except at schools where white boots mark the first eleven. Of all changes in fashion this is the b e st; every cricketer will admit that he has no boots so comfortable as his cricket boots, especially if they are genuine buckskin. It is strange that white boots took so long to make their way ; even in the sixties they were the distinctive mark of the Eleven at Winchester. But, as one began by saying, the cricketer is conservative ; as he has now arrived at a costume which is both ornamental for nothing can surpass white when it is clean—and also practical and comfortable, it may be hoped that the changes of fashion will be less frequent in the future.