Cricket 1912

A p r i l 20, 1912. CEICKET : A WEEKLY EECOED OF THE GAME. 61 the Hastings week. Scotland is worth visiting in Sep­ tember. T h e N. of S. Cricket League dates back to 1893. Its challenge cup during the years since has been won at various times b y Nairn County, Elgin City, Northern Counties (which sounds rather overweight for the other teams competing), St. Andrew’s, Inverness, Forres St. Lawrence, and a couple of military teams. It has a real live secretary in Mr. W. Smith, who does not mind any amount of hard work in the good cause of cricket. (Mr. Smith a subscriber to C r i c k e t , did some unkind reader insinuate ? H ’m, yes— I plead guilty. But— so are the other live secretaries—- don’t make any mistake about th a t!) N. W. J a c k s o n , who batted so well against the M.C.C. team in Argentina, was in the Haileybury elevens of 1892 and 1893, but did not make many runs. In the latter year he took 26 wickets at 10 J runs each, however. P. A. F o y , the crack Argentine bowler, was in the Bedford Grammar School elevens of 1907 and 1908, and in the two seasons made 576 runs with an average of over 27 per innings, and took 78 wickets for between 15 and 16 each. In 1908 he played for Bedfordshire, with no success as a bat, but with 12 wickets at under 20 each as his bowling figures. P r o b a b l y the readers of C r i c k e t have already had a fill of the Australian dispute in the pages of other papers. If I were to extract from colonial exchanges all the matter referring to it, there would be no room in this number for anything else. Papers which don’t customarily reach this office have turned up, with heavily-marked leaders. Well, there is much of interest in them, whether they hail from Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Wagga Wagga, Hobart, Brisbane, or Ararat, and I have read it all, and digested it— as far as possible—but I think I will bar extracts, except for two or three gems. J o e D a r l i n g writes of Peter McAlister as hanging on to the coat-tails of the Board. This is unkind of J . D., and does not do McAlister justice. Nothing seems more certain than that Iredalo and McAlister alike are honest supporters of the Board— just as Darling, Hill, Armstrong, and others are honest opponents of it. People in Melbourne -—some of them—want to testimonialise P. McA. If I were Peter, I should say : “ No, thank you 1” The intention is good, but the occasion inopportune. Edgar Mayne is being blamed for selecting himself— like wicked Peter in 1909. What on earth else was to be anticipated ? I respect both men for having the necessary backbone, and I hope to shake Mayne’s hand and tell him so before long. S o m e b o d y says that the Board were dissatisfied with the selectors for proceeding to choose a team at once. But the selectors were told to do so. Funny Board ! But possibly the Board has been misrepresented. I don’t fancy Iredale and Co. could take Mr. W. P. McElhone “ out of his depth.” Strong swimmer, Mr. McElhone— strong man, too— just a trifle too much of the iron hand about him, perhaps. But he knows what he wants, and goes for it. Dr. M a l o n e y , M.H.R., at the protest meeting in Melbourne, pictured Mr. McElhone as a Nero fiddling while Rome was burning, and compared Peter McAlister to Tigellinus. Nero has been whitewashed already by several eminent hands. Tigellinus— I have refreshed my memory from Smith’s Classical Dictionary—was a very hot lot indeed. I don’t think Peter is a bit like him. But perhaps Tigellinus is to be whitewashed now, and this may be the first step to that end ! Cricket's congratulations to two of South Africa’s foremost cricketers, Messrs. Percy W. Sherwell and Sibley J. Snooke, upon their recent entry into the state matrimonial. But if Sherwell’s marriage is in any way responsible for his refusing to come to England, may one say that one wishes he had post­ poned it ? We should all have liked to see this great-hearted cricketer tread the good greensward of our English grounds again. R a c k e t s , a game calling for much the same qualities that make a man a good bat, has always appealed to cricketers. The Foster brotherhood are amongst its greatest exponents. In the Public Schools Rackets Championship at Queen’s Club this week cricket is fairly well represented, H. D. Hake (Haileybury), G. A. Wright (Charterhouse), F. Cuming and J. H. Naumann (Malvern), and G. L. Jackson (Harrow) are all well-known public school cricketers. W. T. G r e s w e l l was in great bowling form in the annual European v. Ceylonese match at Colombo recently. Six wickets for 27 and seven for 55 against a strong batting team are figures of no small merit. The score of the match will appear in our next issue. T h e Australian Team was—time permitting—to have played a match at Colombo on April 4th. No news concerning this seems to have been received by cable; but it does not follow that the game was not brought off. T h e Porthill Park C.C. hold their annual dinner on Saturday next, and Sidney Barnes will be given a special reception thereat. T h e Athletic Neivs says in its correspondence columns that the six best (can there be “ six best?” ) English wicket­ keepers are Smith, Strudwick, Humphries, Butt, Huish g,nd Board, the six best all-round players Hirst, Woolley, Thompson, Bhodes, Tarrant, and Llewellyn. Bale and Albert Belf are given honourable mention—by Cricket. The three best (I think the term is correct here) cricket critics, on the last- named’s authority, are (you put them in what order you please) the Editor of the “ Athletic News,” Mr. J. A. H. Catton, and “ Tityrus.” H e a r t i e s t congratulations to Mr. A. M. Latham, an old subscriber to and good friend of Cricket, on his recent appoint­ ment to the Becordership of Birkenhead. It will not be news to most readers of the paper that Mr. Latham’s association with Cheshire is an old one. I believe he was born in the county ; in any case he represented it in the cricket field pretty frequently from 1883 to 1894 inclusive, aggregating 685 runs in 54 completed innings, and often keeping wicket well. As a member of the Surrey C.C.C's committee and a many years’ player for the Wanderers, he is among the best known figures in Metropolitan circles. W a s Mr. Sibley Snooke pulling the leg of the interviewer who met him when he came off the “ Gloucester Castle,” or did the gentleman in question misunderstand him ? It will probably be news to Herbert Taylor that he is a first-class wicket-keeper, and Joe Cox may be a left-handed bowler—I cannot swear that he is not, as I have not seen him yet—but if he is, the South African papers have been in a conspiracy to mislead us about him, that’s all! M r . W i l f r i d H u g h e s writes from Packwood Grange, Dorridge, to point out that the match referred to by Mr. J. H. Phillips in his story about Frank Foster at the Nuneaton C.C.’s dinner must have been that between Warwickshire 2nd and Worcestershire 2nd at Whitsuntide, 1908. F. B. F.’s figures were 5 for 25 and 2 for 19—six clean bowled, one l.b.w.—and he went in last and scored 51 not out. Some of Foster’s friends think that the county authorities had no particular desire to encourage—I resist the temptation to use another word— his batting powers, fearing that if he took to making runs, his bowling would suffer. In club cricket he was generally regarded as rather better with bat than ball. I n the match referred to, the last three men on the Warwickshire side—Hughes, Hanmer and Foster—were all old Solihull G.S. boys, and were in the school eleven together. 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 U —Particulars apply Badcliffe-on-Trent, Notts.— (Aiiyt.)