Cricket 1912

Nov. 16, 1912. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OE THE GAME. 567 The Library. (All Publications intended for review in 14Cricket ” must be addressed to the Editor.) “ Triangular Cricket ” * is a capital book. No journalist living speaks his m ind more plainly than E. H. D. Sewell, and he is as plain- spoken as ever here, which renders it all themoregratifying tofind that he has no serious com plaint to make of anybodywho tookpart in the Tournament. As he would assuredly have made it if he had had one, I take this as a certificate of character and good sportsman­ ship for them all. W hich does not mean that I consider m y good friend E. H . D. infallible. I think he presents any­ thing but a convincing argu­ ment on p. 35 re Mayne and Iredale as selectors. Even if Mayne was the best judge of cricket in Australia, he says, “ his opinion for the special purpose of choosing a team for England would not be worth half as much as that of Iredale, supposing Iredale was acknow ledged to be the worst judge of the game, not only in Australia, but in the whole wide world. F or the simple but all-sufficing reason that experience is everything in cricket.” But— is experi­ ence everything ? If Iredale (the supposititious Iredale, who is to be considered the worst judge in the world, that is, n ot the real F. A ., who is a very good one) were the worst judge of cricket in the world, then his opinion, with all his experience thrown in, would be sim ply worth no­ thing at all, and one can’t halve nothing ! The nine matches are dealt with fully, but without padding. I have read every line with interest, though naturally I had waded through a large am ount of m atter about the tests before. The personal touch gives a new value. One hears what Fry and MacLaren and others th o u g h t; one gets at things from the inside. Player and critic, Sewell was on the in­ side, o f course. The photo­ graphs— all but three of them by himself— which illustrate the book are great value. F ry expounding a theory to Jessop, with Spooner smiling in the background, is as life-like as any photograph I ever saw. “ A group of South Africans watching the end of the Fourth Test at Leeds,” is almost cruel in its suggestion of utter “ fed-up-ness.” Mitchell looks very grave ; Beaum ont’s face one cannot s e e ; Faulkner is thinking hard ; W hite has chucked the whole show, and is half asleep ; Ward bends forward, peering at the game with the eagerness of un­ daunted youth, and Strieker is terribly mournful. It is so easy to realise that they did feel like that.” I shall not get Sewell to take m y photograph, I think ; it is a matter in which I like justice to be tempered with mercy. W ith the recklessness that he sometimes puts into his hitting, the author invites “ born statisticians ” to pitch into him for errors ; * “ Triangular Cricket,” by E. H. D. Sewell. Five shillings net. Messrs. J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 10-13, Bedford Street, W.C. he is surethey arethere. W ell, a few ! B ut they seem to be chiefly W . G.’serrors,and on m y life I daren’t think of pitching into W . G. H e is more than a man ; he is an institution. A nd I am not born statistician. 1 may, however, remark that the tenth test was not Bonnor’s first— he played at the Oval in 1880 (the fifth) ; that the 35th was not Syd. Gregory’s first— he played in both the 31st and 32nd ; that the 47th, not the 48th, was J. R . Mason’s first; that “ B osanquet’s last test ” is rather prophecy than state­ ment of fa c t ; that F. L. Fane’s first test, like J. N. Crawford’s, was in South Africa in 1905-6, not in Australia in 1907-8; that “ Trum per’s last hundred in test matches ” is also in the nature of prophecy, and a far m ore doubtful venture than the other ; and that it is by no means certain that S. V. Samuelson, who is not a veteran, has played in his last test. I don ’t agree with the conclusion the author has reached that all matches in South Africa prior to 1905-6 are unworthy to rank as tests. If they are to be scrapped, we must scrap the early England v. Australia matches. No one ever spoke of the “ tests ” in the late seventies and early eighties ; no one regarded the defeat of Lilly white’s t e a m b y Australia as a national de­ feat ; Wisden did not even give the score of the m atch ! No, I really think we ought to go back to 1888-9, when A ll South Africa met M ajor W arton’s T e a m in t w o matches, for the start— or else begin the Australian tests with 1882-3 ( s a y ) , when “ St. Ivo ” went in quest of the ashes lost at the Oval on that great day of August. “ It should be an all-sufficing reason not to include previous teams ” (to South Africa b e f o r e 1905-6, that is), “ as they, though powerful and strictly serious, were not u n d e r the a?gis of M.C.C., which just abou t that time took charge of represent a t i v e cricket,” says E. H. 1). All rig h t! Bang goes every test in Australia before 1903-4 ! B ut I, for one, could not bear that. A nd how could previous teams have been under the Eegis of M.C.C. when M.C.C. only began their control about 1903 ? J. N. P. ----------------------------------------------- C a p t a in R . B a g g a l l a y , o f the S herw ood Foresters, will lead D erbysh ire in 1913. Joh n C hapm an has resigned. T he old U ppin gham ian’s resignation was foreshadow ed b y his seem ing lack o f interest in the gam e last year, w hen he d rop p ed ou t o f the team after a spell of ill luck, bu t the new a ppoin tm ent is rather a surprise, as Captain B aggallay lias on ly played onee for the cou n ty— against the Australians. M essrs . J esso p , F r y , an d S po o n e r . (Photograph by kind permission of Messrs. J. M. Dent <k Sons, Ltd.)