Cricket 1912

AUGUST 17, 1912. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OP THE GAME. 421 T h e b e were as many as 23 lbw decisions out of a total of under 160 wickets lost in the nine first-class matches begun on Bank Holiday. This is about 15 per cent., which must be an unusually large proportion. But if this warning sign will only induce some batsmen to play with their bats instead of their legs—this old evil is not yet dead-— it will serve a useful purpose. Perhaps the large number was mainly due to the fact that on the sodden wickets straight balls sometimes took men who expected a break unawares, or it may have been partly a result of the ball coming along at varying paces from the pitch, and batsmen who were trying to make quite legitimate strokes playing too soon or too late. Big Matches of the Week. K ent v . N o t t in g h a m s h ir e . — On a slow, dead pitch, after two wickets had fallen for 24, Seymour and W oolley added 112 in 95 minutes for the third, each hitting five 4’s. The first day’s play was shortened by a thunderstorm. S. H. Day was the only other Kent batsman to do anything worth noting ; but the total of 236 reaohed next morning proved more than enough. Appearing to ragard their case as hopeless— as doubtless it was— the Notts batsmen played into the hands of Blythe and W oolley (who bowled unchanged) by rash tactics, and could only total 58 in each innings. It is question­ able, however, if Jones and his men would have done any better by D Er\i>- N 2 z < H ^ V v v A R r, 'O fi - lo-i H I R« s t . _ - 6 “i .. There’s life in the old dogs yet, and the Lion would know where to look for a stiffening of veterans, If they were needed. U p to date the number of centuries registered in first- class cricket (including E. B. Mayne’s 111 at Sunderland) is 151. There were 55 in May (including three partially made on June t), 40 in June and 48 in July. B. H. Spooner, Warren Bardsley David Denton, and Philip Mead (6 each), 0. B. Fry and C. G. Macartney, (5 each), the Jam Sahib, Sharp and Hayes (4 each), and Capt. E. I. M. Barrett, A. C. Johnston, P. F. Warner, P. A. Perrin, A. D. Nourse, G. A. Faulkner, Hayward, John Tyldesley, and John Gunn (3 each) have been responsible for 72 among them. Eighteen players have made two each, and 42 one each. FOB SA L E .— A few copies of “ Surrey Cricket and Cricketers ” (Bev. B . S. H olm es), “ Annals of C ricket” (W . W . Bead), Ayres. “ Cricket C om panion” for 1907, “ Catalogue of Cricket Literature ” (A. D. Taylor), ‘.‘ Parsi C ricket” (Pavris), and “ Chronicles of C ricket” (Nyren).— Any reasonable offer accepted. A.B .C . o/o E ditor of Cricket, 33 and 35, Moor Lane, E .C. attempting to sit on lie splice. The match was one of those eminently unsatisfactory games in which the side winning the toss gains an overwhelm ing advantage. L e ic e s t e r s h ir e v . S o c t h A f r ic a n s . — At Leicester, as at Canter­ bury, first innings gave a big pull. In the game forty wickets went down for 336 runs, and of these 125 were scored by the Afrikanders when they batted first. Faulkner had some luck ; W hite batted w ell; Knight, first in, ninth out, was the only double figure scorer in the coum y’s firs t; Cecil W ood batted far better than anyone else in the second. King, whose first wicket of the m atch was his hundredth of the season, bad 12 for 97 ; H. M. Bannister, a new man, took 7 for 4 7 ; for the winners Fanlkner (11 for 59) and Pegler (7 for 57) bowled unchanged except for a few overs sent down by Nourse. On such a wicket Pegler might well have.been replaced by Carter, one fancies ; but M itchell and Tancred seem alike in regarding Pegler as a man who cannot be given too m uch to do. N o r t h a m p t o n s h ir e v . S u s s e x . — The hom e side had 3 down for 8, and 5 for 45 ; but, with the wicket eased by rain and John Denton playing finely, 39 were added for the sixth (Vials and Denton) and