Cricket 1912

462 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. A u g u s t 31, 1912. position will also be retained by points on the first innings at Taunton and at Ilove. But points on the first innings in one match and a loss in the other will not be enough. T he youngest of the first-class counties has set up one rocord anyway. Never before has a county played as many as 18 matches without calling on moro than a dozen players, though Notts in 1907 won the championship with only 14, of whom Day played but once. P erhaps a change in the weather will come before the thirty-seventh Scarborough Festival begins. It will bo a great pity if that is spoiled, for particularly strong sides will be on view. Among tho amateurs who will assist are num­ bered Lord Hawke, the Jam Sahib, G. L. .Tessop, H. H. Spooner, F. R. Fostor, .T. W. H. T. Douglas, K. L. Hutchings, W. S. Bird, A. J. Evans, M. Falcon, H. I;. Simms, N. C. Tufnell, and H. D. G. Leveson-Gower. Besides the Yorkshire brigade, such eminent professionals as Albert Rolf and Sidney Barnes will appear. A mong those who will play for C. B. Fry’s X I. in the last match of the Australian tour, at Woodbrook, are Hobbs, Rhodes, J. W. Hearne, Albert Relf, Barnes, Hitch and Stedman. After their match at Hastings the South Africans will meet Sir Abe Bailey’s X I. at East Grin- stead, and there has been some talk of their arranging other matches. If September should turn out a decent month, this ought to prove a good move. In an innings of 138 for St. Lawrenco v. Gore Court on Wednesday of last week Morfee, the young Kent pro., who next season goes north to a league club, hit four 6’s and nineteen 4’s. Morfee has made great strides as a batsman of lato. Last year his batting average for Kent Second Eleven was 20'00, and in all matches he made 476 runs with an average of 23'80 (vide the Kent C.C.C.’s Young Players’ Committee Roport). Ho must have scored something like a thousand rims in 1912. T he averages given on another page may give the impression that our Philadelphian visitors are a weak batting side ; but the weather has been all against them. They have, of course, no claim to be of international calibre ; theirs was only a modest club tour. Also they are in the main a young side. J. L. Evans, who did best for them, is a Merion club man, and the brothers Conyers hail from Hamilton, Bermuda. Among the Philadelphia club’s members unable to make the trip were H. W. Middle­ ton, A. S. Valentine, A. G. Scattergood, W. W. Justice, H. R. Cartwright, F. B. Harris, and E. Hopkinson, who filled the first seven places in the club’s Halifax Cup batting averages in 1911, and E. M. Cregar, the club’s most famous all-rounder. J. H. Mason, the president, was then at the head of the Philadelphia Cup (the second grade competition, to adopt Australian parlance) batting averages, with 46’25 per innings ; H. W. Goodall (34'33), A. Hunter, jun. (20*80), C. S. Mitchell, H. P. Wright, T. F. Dixon, jun., and G. T. Hawley were all among the younger players taking part in that competition. H. L. C lark is a brother of the better-known players, E. W. and P. H. Clark, and all three have visited England with representative Philadelphian teams, H. L.’s visit being paid in 1897. A slight confusion has been produced in some minds by ignorance of the fact that this last tour was a Philadelphia club tour, not a Philadelphian tour, which is a very different matter. One hopes it will not be long before another representative Philadelphian team visits England. J. B. King (to whom Mr. Brooking refers on another page) is still a power, and J. L. Evans of the present team, C. C. Morris, W. W. Foulkrod, F. S. White, T. C. Jordan, C. H. Winter, C. M. and Willard Graham, P. H. Clark, A. G. Scattergood, and S. W. Mifflin are among the others who would be in a possible selection. But Dr. J. A. Lester, N. Z. Graves, and many another good man not yot past playing years seem to have dropped out. D o r in g tho 25 years 1887 to 1911 inclusive 30 County Championship games were abandoned without a ball bowled in them, owing to rain. The highest number in any one season was 6 in 1903. There were 4 in 1901, and 3 each in 1907, 1908, and 1909. In 1887, 1888, 1890, 1892, 1893, 1896, 1897, 1900, 1906, 1910, and 1911 no match was thus given up. This season has seen as many as 5 abandoned to date, while many more have been completely spoiled. G loucestersh ire , playing all through the quarter of a century, never had one game given up unstartod. That record is now broken. The counties which suffered most in the period were Kent (9 games abandoned), Lan­ cashire. Middlesex, Surrey, and Yorkshire (6 each), Essex (5), and Derbyshire and Leicestershire (4 each). B arnes has now taken 106 wickets in England v. Aus­ tralia matches, beating Peel’s 102, formerly tho higliost for England, and in all tests the Staffordshire crack has a total of 140, which is only one behind record—the 141 of the great Hugh Trumble. There seems no particular reason why S. F. B . should not still be playing for England three years hence, and he may then set up a new record which will take some knocking out of time. An enquiring correspondent wants to know something about the overseas circulation of C ricket . He remarks that I appear to consider the tastes of my overseas readers more than those of the home brigade. The overseas readers on tho contrary, consider that the boot is on the other log. Which reminds me of a little story—perfectly true. Over twenty yoars ago, when I had just loft school, and was playing a lot of footer, I refereed a game between two Huntingdonshire clubs, Warboys and Ramsey. They were near neighbours and deadly rivals ; the game was not a pleasant one ; and before it was over members of both sides had accused mo of giving unfair decisions in their opponents’ favour. I think it may reasonably be deduced that I had favoured neither side. “ The bearings of this here observation lies in the application thereof,” as that master-mind, Captain Bunsby, was wont to say. B ut I don’t mind obliging an enquiring mind. A hurried look over the list of postal subscribers—but these, of course, are not all, as Messrs. Gordon & Gotch weekly send out several hundred copies of tho paper to the colonies —shows one that they are pretty widely spread. On the Continent we have subscribers in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Italy, and Greeca ; copies go week by week to China, Japan, India, Tibet, the Straits Settlements, and Java ; to every state in Australia and to practically every province in New Zealand : to the Argentine republic, Chile, Brazil and British Guiana ; to Costa Rica and Mexico; to New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Georgia, South Carolina, California, Utah, Illinois, Washington, Maryland, Montana, Michigan, Ohio, and I believe one or two other States of the Union : to British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec provinces ; to Trinidad, Barbados, Montserrat, Antigua, Dominica, Tobago, St. Croix, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Jamaica in tho West Indies; to noarly every part of South Africa, to the Gold Coast and Nigeria ; and to Bermuda. This may not be quite a complete list, but it is sufficient to show that we have put a girdle round tho globe. A K entish reader points out that in my list of 1,000 runs scorers I skipped from 29 (issue of August 17) to 32 (August 24). Sorry ! I hasten to set this right. No 29 was Charles Kelleway, who qualified on August 13. Since then the additions to the list have been :— 30.—H . W. Taylor, Aug. 15 . 34.— Stone (J.), Aug. 16. 3 1 .—P. A. Perrin, Aug. 15. 35.—Quaife (W. G .), Aug. 16. 32.—G . A. Faulkner, Aug. 16 . 36.—King (J. H .), Aug. 19 . 33.— Eelf (A. E .), Aug. 16. T he additions to the list of hundred wicket takers are:— 16 .—H irst (G. H .), Aug. 28. 17 .— W. J . W hitty, Aug. 28. R i c h a r d d a f t ’ S. N o t t i n g h a m s h i r e m a r l . —Particulars apply Radcliffe-on-Trent, Notts.—(Advt.)