Cricket 1912

138 CEICKET: A WEEKLY EECOED OF THE GAME. M a y 18, 1912. that same season he played innings of 87 (for N.S.W.) and 70 (for Australia) against the English team, scored 101 on a bad wicket (next highest score 23) v. Victoria at Melbourne, 69 in the return at Sydney, and 66* v. S. Australia at Sydney. In 1896 he headed the Australian averages in England, made three centuries and ten scores of between 50 and 100, and played a memorable innings of 103 in the Lord’s test. The Australians had collapsed before Richardson and Lohmann for 53 at the outset. England totalled 292. Darling and Eady went with only three runs on the board. George Giffen and Trott added 5 9 ; then Richardson bowled the South Australian veteran. Gregory joined his captain ; they stayed together nearly 2-J hours ; they added 221 runs, and neither of them gave a chance. As in 1893, the little man did nothing very notable in the brief American tour that followed, nor did he play any long innings in New Zealand. For all matches of the tour, he dropped to fourth place in the averages, Darling, Giffen, and Iredale heading him. An innings of 68 v. Victoria at Melbourne was his best in big matches of the 1896-7 season. But, as usual when an English team is down under he was at the top of his form in 1897-8. His scores against Stoddart and Oo. were 14, 44, 77 (for X III. of Q. and N.S.W ., not ranking first-class), 46, 31, 71, 52, 0, 21*, 25, 171, 21 and 22*. The century was made in the return N.S.W. game, when a new world’s record aggregate (since beaten) of 1739 runs was set up. He was not very well ; it took him an hour to reach double figures. Then he suddenly began to force the pace, and made his last 160 runs without a chance in about as many minutes b y the most brilliant batting ! In the Sheffield Shield matches of the season he made 22, 17, 72 and 15 v. Victoria, 83 and 11 v. South Australia at Sydney. He captained the side in the last-mentioned match, a fact which reminds one that leadership is no novelty to him. His biggest innings in 1898-9 was 89 v. S. Australia at Sydney. He began the ’ 99 campaign in England with a century— an innings somewhat after the manner of the curate’s egg— at the Crystal Palace. On the whole, his genera] form during the tour had kinship with that initial effort. He played very finely indeed at times—- notably for 117 v. England at the Oval—but failed to come up to his form of three years earlier. But the next season in Australia saw him in good fettle. It had been said that the Adelaide wicket was too fast for him ; and up to this time he had done nothing very great upon it. But in December, ’ 99, he was one of three—Noble and Trumper the others—who contributed centuries to a great total of 807 made by N.S.Wales in the City of Churches. Noble and he added 286 for the fifth wicket. A much smaller but really more valuable innings was his 66 v. Victoria at Sydney. On a good wicket his side had ,6 out for 108 ; then Gregory and the late Reggie Duff added 113 for the seventh. In 1900-1 he again did well— 51 and 31 v. S.A. at Adelaide, 66* (a long way highest score) and 9 v. Victoria at Melbourne 168 (one of five centuries in a record innings of 918) v. S.A. at Sydney, and 6 and 49 v. Victoria at Sydney. The season of 1901-2 saw another English team— MacLaren’s— down under. As usual, S.E.G. performed well. In the five tests he a,veraged just on 30 per innings, highest score 55 ; in the return N.S.W. match he batted splendidly for 147 (in 3 f hours) and 75. Against S. Aus­ tralia at Adelaide he played a fine innings of 182. In the old country in 1902 he was by no means in his best form, and “ Wisden ” remarked that “ one can scarcely expect to see him in England with the next team ” —a prophecy signally falsified. Always making runs, he seldom stayed long enough to make a great many. Among his best performances were 72 v. Cambridge, 71 against Thompson, Wilson, Arnold, and Bestwick at Eastbourne (in a match v. An England X I.), when most of his comrades failed, 42* on a nasty pitch at Brad­ ford v. Yorkshire (10 next highest score), 83 v. Warwick­ shire, 45 v. Worcestershire, 86 v. M.C.C., and 32* v. Lancashire at Liverpool. In most of these cases he made runs when they were badly needed—always a happy knack of his. To everyone’s regret he fell short of four figures by just one run. Was it significant that he was run out in his last innings ? But he has always been avid of the stolen single. To all appearances “ Wisden ” was right. He did nothing of moment in South Africa, and it seemed that his career was nearing its end when in 1902-3 he played in only two of hts State’s matches. But the coming of another English team in 1903-4 bucked him up again. He is like the war-horse in J o b ; when test cricket is toward he snuffs the battle from afar. Another big score against S. Australia at Adelaide.—152 this time.—carried him back into the Australian team, and in the third game of the rubber he made a brilliant 112 in 130 minutes.— of which Albert Knight wrote in picturesque terms which I cannot recall precisely at the moment, but I remember (hat the comparison was with a sunset flash on windows, and the inference that S.E.G. was practically done. Not yet, by long odds ! He was left out of the fifth test, though, the first he had missed for twelve years. Nothing remarkable was credited to him in big cricket in 1904-5 ; but nevertheless he won his place in the twelfth team for England. In New Zealand on the way he hit up 85 v. XV . of Wellington, and 61 v. New Zealand at Christchui’ch. The old country again scarcely saw him at his best, however. He hit brilliantly for his 13'4 against Hampshire at Southampton ; but the bowling had been knocked all to pieces before he went in. His 51 in the Nottingham test and 32* in that at Leeds showed that he had not lost his power to rise to the occasion ; and his 96 v. Northants., when he and Gehrs put up 157 for the first wicket in about an hour and a half was an innings reminiscent of his best. He played in fewer than half the matches, but that was due mainly to ill-health. Again he was written down finished, and once more he falsified the judgment. Not atonce, though. He did not play for N.S.Wales at all in 1905-6, or in1906-7 ; but in the latter season he figured for the Rest of Australia against his own State, and played well for 94. It needed another English team to bring him out of his shell. A. O. Jones and his band came along. This time getting back was more difficult. Gregory was not chosen for N.S.Wales against the tourists ; he did not play against S. Australia at Sydney, but he was playing for an Australian X I. at Brisbane on the same days as those on which that match took place. He did not figure in the first throe tests. But late in January he scored 201— in 4§ hours, with twenty-four 4’s—and 63 v. Victoria, and again he donned harness for Australia, doing little at Melbourne in the fourth test, but aggregating 100 (44, highest score of innings, and 56) in the last. He finished up the season with a brilliant 106 for the Australian Eleven v. the Rest. Going strongly again in 1908-9, he scored 94 v. S. Australia, a dashing 179 (two early chances, twenty-six 4’s) v. Victoria, and 41 and 126* for the Australian Eleven v. the Rest, all on the Sydney ground. Booked now for his seventh trip to England ! The season of 190 9 was a wet and dismal one. Bardsley and Ransford, gifted with the spring and elan of youth, triumphed over its drawbacks. It can hardly be said that Gregory did so. Yet at times he showed form worthy of his best days. His 43 against England at Edgbaston, his 29 v. Somerset (look up the score, if you feel inclined to c a v il!), his 46 v. England at Leeds, above all his 74 v. England at the Oval, when he and Bardsley sent up 180 for the first wicket in 135 minutes, were not epoch- making innings ; but they were worthy of him, and 'seventh place in the averages scarcely did him justice, perhaps. He did not return to Australia until early in the New Year, and so missed several N.S.Wales matches ; but, with a damaged hand to hamper him, he played fine cricket for 169 not out v. Victoria at Sydney, batting 4J hours and hitting sixteen 4’s. The sad death of his brother Charles—who ought to have played for Australia, but never did—kept him out of big matches in the next season, and he did not once bat against the South Africans. But his return to the arena, his great 186* v. the M.C.C. team, his re-entry into test match cricket, his choice for England an eighth time— equalling Blackham’s record— and his appointment as captain of the team : these things are surely fresh in the memory of all. Of those who came to England on Gregory’s - first