Cricket 1912

570 CRICKET A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. Nov. 16, 1912. D . K . K apadia has made a big name for him self this year. H e j was one of the reserves for the A ll India team of 1911, and had any one besides the tw o Kashm ir men, Manek Chand and N oor Illahi, | backed out, would have gone into the team. Playing for the Elphin- stone C.C. in cup m atches this season he averaged 144-75 per innings, his scores being 6, 60*, 128, 77, 53, 85*, 62*, and 102*. In the full j season— only tw o m onths, m ind, and with slow wickets frequent— he totalled 1,080 in 25 innings, 6 tim es not out— average 56-89. H e is only twenty-three, and, apart from his batting, is reckoned the best fieldsman among the Parsis. A t present he is studying for his B .A . | degree. H e did very well in the big matches, as did D. D. Driver, and of j course there was Dr. K anga’s innings of 150 v. the H indus, though I that was disfigured by several chances ; but in these gam es J. S. | W arden, o f whom m ore next m onth, was the shining light. W arden 1 did scarcely any bowling ; Parekh, Elavia, and Dr. Kanga left him ■ little to do. B y the way, these Parsi names bother me. W arden and Cooper and Spencer and D river and some of the others “ are English, you know , quite English, you know .” But m y corre­ spondent, who should know, spells Parekh with “ u ” instead of “ e,” “ Gazdar ” as “ Guzder,” and “ W acha ” as “ V atcha.” The I spellings I used were those from the printed scores in the Times oj India. Probably they are wrong. The Salem (Madras Presidency) C.C. went on tour late in Sep- j tem ber on the W est Coast of India, playing m atches at Mangalore, Tcllicherry, Calicut, and Coim batore. T hey won three gam es and drew two. Of the three English m embers of the team one could o n ly . play in the first two games, and another in the last game. Against Mangalore they ran up 250, A ppavu making 71. Against Tellicherry the same batsman scored 48 in the first innings, when Krishnaswamy made 56 ; in the second Singaram scored 56*. Against Calicut the Salem men went dow n for 29 in the first innings, no one reaching doubles ; most of the damage was done by a bowler with the euphon­ ious name of Kunhikannan, who seems to be a great gun. Coim ba­ tore were dismissed for 41 and 70 by A ppavu (14 wickets) and K rish­ naswamy, who seem to be all-round cricketers of no mean merit. In the five m atches of the tour A ppavu totalled 152 in 7 innings and took 30 wickets ; Krishnaswam y made 184 in 8 (one not out), and took 23 wickets. Coultrup, the one European representative play­ ing throughout, took the same number of wickets as Krishnaswamy, once having 8 in an innings. CEYLON . W E ST A F R IC A . A correspondent on the G old Coast sends me the score of a m atch played between the Sekondi C.C. and the Sekondi Native C.C. The form er side won very easily, J. B. Burns taking 7 wickets for 13. This gentleman (now in England on leave) is a brother of W . B. Burns, the dashing Worcestershire batsman. They have five prac­ tice nights a week at Sekondi (5 p.m . to 6.15), and play on concrete covered with matting, which gives a fast, true pitch. SOME CEN TU R IE S. A. C. Longbourne, 111, K am loops v. S.O.E. (British Columbia). E. W . Ism ay, 128*, A lbion v. Garrison (Victoria, B.C.). P. Morris Davies, 149*, K olar Gold Fields v. Madras C.C. South African Cricketers. T H E N EW E RA . Johannesburg , October 21, 1912. When the history of South African cricket com es to be written at some future date, the year 1912 will be marked not so much by the Triangular Tournam ent as by the impulse towards reform ation which has pervaded the cricket comm unity here, penetrating even to the heart of the South African Cricket B oard itself ! W hether the peni­ tence, begotten of adversity, for past short-sightedness is permanent or merely transient, time alone will t e ll; but certain it is that never before has there been such a unanim ity of opinion in South African cricket circles as there is at the present time, as to the shortcomings of our representative X I. The Anuradhapura Sports Club ran up the biggish score of 447 against the Kurunegala S.C. in a recent match, A. B. Siriwardana making 145, and W . L. K indersley 79. T o a total o f 170 by Kurune­ gala, D . B. Gunesekora contributed as m any as 95. F or C olom bo v. R ichm ond College Masters, Captain Foulkes scored 93 ; Dr. G. Thorn­ ton (of Yorkshire, M iddlesex and South Africa) took 9 wickets for 57, and V. F. S. Crawford (Surrey and Leicestershire) 7 for 51. A remarkable bowling feat was perform ed by C. Horan for Police v. Secretariat, on O ctober 20. H e had 7 wickets for 24 in the first innings, 7 for 4 in the second, when the whole side was dismissed for 13. C A L IF O R N IA . The Barbarians C.C. won the cham pionship o f the local league, with 15 points in 12 matches. T he league is confined to three clubs, and each plays each of the others half-a-dozen times, which means that batsmen meet the same bowlers so frequently that scoring would be likely to rule high, if it were n ot for the fact that grounds are bad. Cricket in San Francisco has never quite got over the earthquake, I fancy. The league table (Alam eda and Golden Gate did n ot play their last match, nothing depending upon its result) was as follow s :— P. W. L.D. Points Barbarian C.C..................................................... 12 5 2 5 15 Alameda C.C. ... ... ... ... ... 11 3 3 5 11 Golden Gate C.C. ... ... ... ... 11 2 5 4 8 A picked team o f the California C.A. played an interesting game with an X I. of the Australian R ugby football side on tour in Cali­ fornia. The Australians included at least two well-known first- grade Sydney players in W ard Prentice and W . H ill; but they were quite outm atched, as the score on another page will show. Lafferty and Stewart bow led in deadly fashion ; Stuart hit well, and E. A. Singer (who will be remembered in Shanghai) played a very careful innings. A t one stage the game looked very even, as the Californians had 7 down for 41 ; but Singer and Price retrieved the situation. N ot that our present state is decadent, for, broadly speaking, South African cricket is stronger and healthier to-day than it has ever been in the past, not even excepting the years 1906 and 1907, and I do not consider the team which has just returned from England as weak as their test match record makes them out. Since the day of that disastrous debacle at Manchester it has been the fashion to belittle the side, and the casual follow er of the game who desires to pose as an authority has merely had to give it as his opinion that the team should never have been allowed to sail, and that South African cricket had gone to the dogs. Few would venture to argue or contra­ d ict ; and so it is that for the last few months the trams, the trains, and all places where men do gather together, public and private, have been made horrid by the vapourings of these self-constituted critics. In selecting this unlucky team the South African Cricket Board evinced a broader tendency than they had ever shown before, and the team ’s failure has brought it home to them still more forcibly that they must persevere in this direction, for a new South African X I. requires building up. The Board realise this, and they also realise that the units of the new side will not of necessity com e from the Transvaal, a state of affairs to which the other centres, hungering for recognition, are fully alive. There has been a marked awakening, one sign o f which is that professional coaches have been engaged at Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Bloem fontein (and, of course, Johannesburg), whilst it is quite possible that Maritzburg, Kimberley, and East London will follow suit. I see from the last number of C r ic k e t to hand that the new Currie Cup scheme has been dealt with, so there is no necessity for me to dwell on this subject. A t the tim e of writing only Natal, Trans­ vaal, Western Province, Free State, and Eastern Province have entered, Rhodesia, the Border, and Griqualand W est having stated their inability to do so. The defection of the two latter is particu­ larly regrettable, for in both centres there is much good material, which only requires experience to develop it. The Border did so well in the last two tournaments that they should have been encour­ aged to go on to yet better things. The K im berley folk have cer­ tainly fared disastrously in recent years ; but in the tournament at Durban very strong indications were given that they possessed several players of uncomm on ability in the making— notably the Tapscott brothers and C. Maritz. The cricket season in South A frica has no settled date for its opening. It straggles in according to local conditions and arrange­ ments with the football bodies, for nearly every cricket ground is used for football purposes. In Johannesburg and Durban league