Cricket 1912

244 CEICKET : A WEEKLY EECOED OF THE GAME. J un e 15, 1912. his own standard, and he made only strokes that could be made with safety. Rhodes was steadiness and judgment personified. Both made one feel that they deserved their luck. Truly no day’s play has ever more clearly shown the difference in class between two sides. T he S econd D ay . The most remarkable feature of Monday was not, as I have said, the collapse of South A frica on a difficult wicket, but their inability to take advantage of tbe state of the pitch and the extraordinary luck (this continued until after lunch on Tuesday) which Rhodes and Spooner enjoyed in the m atter of being beaten without being bowled. Yet, to judge from m any of the comments on Monday’s play, it was almost a piece of impertinence on the part of South A frica to meet us on level terms. Some, with delightful inconsequence, placed A ustralia on the sam e low plane as South Africa. H appily Tuesday’s play supplied a strong “ invective ” of this new arrogance. Anyone who saw the matoh m ust know that we were very lucky to make 337, for no side has ever enjoyed more luck in the matter of men being beaten without being bowled than did the En glish team up to lunch on Tuesday. At the adjournment England had scored 303 for 4 wickets ; after lunch M itchell at last thought of doing what he should have done long before, if not, indeed, from the first over, and put Pegler on at the Pavilion end. Pegler at once finished off the innings. The six outstanding wickets fell for 34, and Pegler took every one of the six for only 16 runs. As Pegler finished off the M .C.C. second innings in the sam e fashion—he took 6wickets for 10 runs when put on at the Pavilion end after the tea interval—on 14 May, it seems strange that M itchell should have waited until the total was 303 before trying him from the end which clearly suits him and, on theory of his bowling, should suit him . Indeed, if M itchell had begun with Pegler on Monday at the Pavilion end, it is practically certain that England, even with all their luck in, would have failed to secure much of a lead, for, of course, the wicket would have helped him more late on Monday than it did on Tuesday after lunch. Keeping a most puzzling length Pegler had great control over his break after going on at 303 and invariably just did enough to beat the bat, while he seemed to vary his break to suit the batsman. Thus he bowled Jessop with an off-break which the batsman tried to cut, and he got Sm ith with a leg-break when the batsman attempted a pull. It was a rem arkable bit of bowling, but it came too late to retrieve the day for South Africa. Still it was a salutary lesson, for it showed that we are just as liable as our rivals to be bundled out cheaply and quickly by really good bowling, especially when the bowler is a thinker and not a mere machine. In all Pegler took 7 wickets for 65. H is bowling was the best in the match up to this point, especially when regaid is had to the fact that he was very unlucky from the nursery end. For our long lead of 279 we were, of course, indebted to Spooner, Woolley. Rhodes and Warner. Spooner, who made his 119 out of 203 in three hours, played delightful cricket, his scoring strokes being beautifully made without effort by perfect timing and the deft use of feet and wrists, but he enjoyed extraordinary luck. He gave two chanpes, one when 50 and one when 93, both to mid-on, but his chief luck lay in not being bowled. Rhodes was equally lucky in the same respect. Woolley was also somewhat lucky, but he made m any fine drives, outs, and strokes on the leg side. H is two sixes off full losses were huge hits to the on. W arner was very steady, but he was never at home. There were three stands in the innings, Rhodes and Spooner put on 124 (Spooner 73, Rhodes 36) for the second wicket in 105 m inutes; Fry, who made the bowling look very difficult, and Spooner added 55 for the third wicket (Spooner 25, F ry 29) in 50 minutes, while Woolley and Warner (Woolley 72 and Warner 36) added 1 1 3 in 75 m inutes for the fifth wicket. The South African fielding was better than on Monday. When the South Africans went in again, Taylor and Hartigan were quiokly out, but Llew ellyn and Nourse seemed to be on the way to m astering the bowling when Nourse was unluckily run out. Faulkner played very steadily, while Llewellyn after a quiet start, played brilliant cricket, yet showed sound judg­ ment and ran no risks. H is off-driving was specially fine. Faulkner after showing characteristic restraint for 75 m inutes suddenly made a reckless attempt to pull and paid the penalty for he picked the wrong ball—a delivery that came in from leg and kept law. Although the South Africans were in a hopeless position at the close (being still 165 runs behind with 6 wickets in hand) Llewellyn and Nourse had shown that those were right who contended that the English bowling was not strong enough and that too much reliance was being placed on Foster and Barnes. Woolley was expensive and ineffective ; Brearley never troubled the batsmen and Hobbs was the only bowler except the pair to give the batsmen any anxiety. This was due to the fact that Hobbs every now an 1 then bowled a particularly good ball that came with the arm We scored 2 15 runs during the day f>ir the loss of 9 wickets (average nearly 24 per wicket), while the South A fricans scored 114 for 4 wickets (average 28'50 per wicket), so that on the day they made more runs per wicket. T he C oncluding S tage . There was a very small attendance when the m atch entered upon its final stage on Wednesday. T h is was only natural, for the South A fricans were in a hopeless position, and an early finish and easy En glish victory seemed assured. Both expectations were realised; the six outstanding wickets fell for the addition of 10 3 runs, and at twenty minutes to one England had won by an innings and 62 runs. As at Manchester in 1905, rain began to fall as soon as England had won. The features of the final stage were the fine batting of Llewellyn, whose innings was the best in the m atch for he scored his 75 with good cricket entirely and had nothing to thank fortune for. He got his runs out of 130 , and was batting for 2 J hours. Schwarz and Carter played plucky cricket in a lost cause. S ome F inal I mpressions . Looking back on the game, it was, of course, lost and won on Monday. The South African batting failure would have been of little m om ent; it was their bowling failure when the wicket was difficult which cost them the match, or at least was the cause of the decisive character of their defeat. The bowlers were, of course, unlucky, and Spooner and Rhodes were chosen children of fortune for the d a y ; but they made the error of adopting “ fast p itch ” methods on a rather slow and decidedly difficult pitch. If they had bowled at the wicket and left the pitch to do the rest, the match would have run a very different course. Indeed, it m ight have done so if, as I have said before, M itchell had begun with Pegler at the Pavilion end. Still, Pegler might have made the same m istake as he made from the Nursery end on Monday— the mistake of trying to do too much. None of the bowlers trusted the pitch ; whereas Barnes and Foster did so. There can be no question that the South African side of 1907 would have had England out, or nearly out, on Monday. The match amply justified all I wrote as to the English side, and, above all, the En glish bowling. Foster and Barnes divided the wickets, and, as it happened, proved am ple; but whenever they were at all mastered, or had to be taken off, there was no one to go on on Tuesday, no one, that is, who troubled the batsmen at all. Spooner made his first century in test matches, but the fact in no w ay modifies the views expressed in my recent article, while certain incidents in the game, notably W arner’s reception, show what view of the matter is taken by the cricket public. There must be changes for the next match in the direction of strengthening our bowling and securing a more co-operative field. But the bowling is the thing. Its poverty, if Barnes and Foster fa il—and they cannot be expected to bear the whole burden, and to be equally successful in all the matches—was revealed on Tuesday. Indeed the success of the bowling was largely due to the fact that the South Africans, on current form, are the weakest batting side that have ever faced England in England. The 1902, 1905 and 1909 Australian sides would, I believe, have pulled the game round in spite of our long lead, as the Australians did in sim ilar circumstances in 1896. I hope to be able to refer to the England eleven for the second test in a future article. A remarkable feature of a remarkable match was the total absence of enthusiasm at the close. There was not even a semblance of a demonstration, yet an English victory has on all other occasions, led to scenes of enthusiasm when the game was over. Possibly the spectators thought that the South Africans had already drank deeply enough of the vanquished’s cup of woe. Corr^spond<?nc^. A N O T A B L E P E R F O R M A N C E . To the Editor o f C r ic k e t . S ir ,— I h a v e not seen, either in you r colum ns or elsew here, an y reference to a p articu larly n otew orth y ach ievem ent on the p art of M r. D . C. Collins, w ho played in the C am bridge E leven dn 19 10 and 1 9 1 1 , and row ed in the late sensational boat race. !B y gain ing this double B lu e, so h ig h ly valu ed and so seldom obtained, M r. C ollins causes his nam e to be inscribed on a 'very select roll o f fam e. A lthough the first in ter-U n iversity cricket m atch took place as far back as 18 2 7 , and the first boat- race in 18 2 9 , but 16 m en (including M r. Collins) h ave gained this coveted distinction—9 C antabs and 7 O xonians. F o rty-o n e y e a rs h ave elapsed since th is feat w as last recorded : M r. J . W . D ale o f the C am bridge E le v e n 18 6 8 -18 70 also row in g against O xford in 186 9 and 18 7 0 . Y o u rs, &c. H ud dersfield , A pril 29, 19 12 . A . C. D E N H A M .