Cricket 1912

516 CfeiCkET: A WEEKLY EllCOEt) OE THE! GAME. & e p t . 21, 1912. H. GRADIDGE & SONS, Manufacturers and Exporters of all requisites for Cricket, Lawn Tennis, Racquets, Squash Racquets, &c. Reblading Cricket bats and Restringing Tennis bats a Special feature. F a c t o r y s— ARTILLERY PLAGE, WOOLWICH, S.E. Patentees and Sole makers of the ^ I M P E R I A L D R I V E R ” Cricket Bats made in Men’s, Small Men’s, College, 6, 5, 4, & 3, sizes. Every other requisite for Cricket, including balls, leg guards, batting'gloves, gauntlets, stumps, nets, &c. Price L ists and Special Quotations free . ALL GOODS CARRIAGE PAID TO ANY PART OF TH E UNITED KINGDOM. Sole Makers of the “ Imper ial D r i v e r ” and “ Improved G r ad i dg e ” Lawn Tennis Racquets. not that much was seon of tho sun in 1912 ! In tho courso of a single match one might have several different types of wicket.—possibly a plumb pitch to start with, then one blow and easy after rain, later one cakod by tho sun’s action, and then perhaps ono again rendered easier by a further downfall. And this was not the worst, either, for one might find the ball coming at half-a-dozen different paces from one wicket, owing to the fact that it had dried patchily, retaining the moisture in some places and letting it through in others. England, of course, had a great advantage in the Tri­ angular Tournament—several advantages, indeed. There was the wide area of selection. There was the fact that, while English batsmen knew the worst of English wickets (or thought they did), and had learned the game upon them, the two colonial sides included a good many men who had no knowledge beforehand, except by hearsay, of the con­ ditions. But I quite admit that England was the best side. Hobbs and Rhodes as an opening pair of batsmen, under­ standing one another so thoroughly, making many.short inns that would be mere folly for others to attempt, formed a big asset. Then there were Barnes and Foster as bowlers, and with these I should place Dean, while Woolley must not be overlooked. In Australia the wickets are turf. But that does not mean they are like English wickets. In the first place, the weather is so much more settled, rain being quite the exception. For a big match the wicket is under preparation for nearly a fortnight. At one stage it is under water, and successive saturations and rollings bring it to the truth of a billiard table, and give it a surface that can only be described as glazed. You can’t pluck blades of grass from an Australian pitch, but you can scratch i t ! These wickets last wonderfully—five or six days’ play will some­ times find them almost as good as at the start. Of course they favour the batsman. This means that Australian bowlers must be clever if they are to do any good. It also means that the Australian batsman who has never known a dead or “ glue-pot” English pitch finds himself very much at sea here. Even the dead and easy pitch is a new ex­ perience to him, and he cannot at once believe in its easiness, I though he soon learns to ; as for the real “ gluepot,” one can hardly be surprised if he is helpless on it. That was undoubtedly the reason why several brilliant young players failed to do themselves justice on this tour. Bards­ ley, Macartney, Gregory, had had previous experience ; Jennings, Minnett, Mayne, Smith, and others had not, and they were terribly handicapped. The Australian public is very keen on the game, and this helps to make conditions favourable there. Every Seasoned player knows that a real crowd tends to bring out one’s best, while rows of empty benches dispirit and depress. One thing that struck us South Africans particularly was the amount of cricket played by ladies in Australia. Coming from practice on the Melbourne ground one day, a few of us stood watching some ladies at play, and one of them came up and asked me to show them how to bowl the googly ! A great source of strength to Australian cricket, too, is the large number of really good clubs in each of the principal cities. There is never any lack of promising ‘recruits. You cannot pick a Gregory off every gooseberry- bush or unearth a Trumble in every town ; but where there are so many really good there is always a chance of finding the very best. South African cricket means matting wickets. This is a heavy drawback to our players when they go to other countries. The English and Australian wickets are as different as can be from the conditions they have known. You cannot get a turf wicket in Africa ; at least, no attempt in that direction yet made has been of any avail. A carefully nursed and tended turf wicket at Johannesburg, which had been in preparation for months, went all to pieces after being played upon on ce! The practical absence of rain inland during the summer would tell against the possibility of such wickets, of course, increasing the expense of their upkeep enormously. I was reared on matting wickets; and possibly I may be accused of prejudice—may even be ridiculed— when I say that I believe they are fairer for a real test of merit between two sides than any turf pitch. Why ? Simply because the conditions are equal. Rain has practi­ cally no effect upon them. On matting you can always get a break. That serves