Cricket 1913

July 12. 1913. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 389 A m o n g those who have played their parts in at least three of the nine games are G. Brann, C. B. Fry, W. Newham, Bowell, Butt, Cuffe, Pearson, and Wheldon. I n s t a n c e s of three or more centuries in an innings | in a first-class match are, of course, numerous. The Oxford innings at Southampton was the third such j this season, Kent and Worcestershire accounting for j the other two. My list gives 90 instances in all to date, including 13 in Australia, two in South Africa, and one each in New Zealand and the United States. I i n c l u d e among the 73 instances in the United Kingdom the three scored by Gloucestershire batsmen against the West Indian side of 1900 and the three by j Australian batsmen against Western Union of Scotland j in 1909, though these matches were not officially recog­ nised as first-class. K e n t has the longest list (8). Australian Teams in England, Surrey, and Worcestershire claim seven each. Yorkshire has six ; Notts five ; Essex four ; Lancashire, Oxford University, and Somerset three ea ch ; Derby­ shire, Gloucestershire, Hants, Leicestershire, the M.C.C., Middlesex, Sussex, and Warwickshire two each ; Cam­ bridge University, England (v. Warwickshire), the Gentlemen (v. the Players), and the London County C.C. one each. A l l the Kent instances are comparatively recent, which helps to account for the fact that James Seymour has been concerned in as many as four of the eight, and C. J. Burnup and Frank Woolley in three each. H . K . F o s t e r and Bowley each had a share in five of the seven Worcestershire instances. William Gunn was one of the trio in four out of five for Notts, the first and fourth separated by no less than sixteen years. B o w l e y , by the way, has made more centuries (31) than any other Worcestershire batsman. Sixteen of them have been made on the Worcester ground. A. P. D a y ’s ten first-class centuries have all been made on different grounds : Blackheath, Catford, Gloucester, Gravesend, Leyton, Lord’s, Northampton, Southampton, Taunton, and Tunbridge Wells. I cannot recall another such instance, though Hardinge has made twelve on nine different enclosures ; and perhaps Hum­ phreys’s 17 on 16 grounds (two in the West Indies included), Hove being the only one which appears twice, and Woolley’s 21 on 18 (Lord’s, Taunton, Tunbridge Wells two each), are even more remarkable. It is naturally to the Kent players, with their home matches distributed over the county, that one looks for such records as these. H a r r y I. B r o w n , one-time slow medium bowler and useful batsman in Philadelphian teams, now retired from play but keen as ever on the game, writes me that the Philadelphian failure against the Australians in the first match, at Manheim, “ was due first, last, and all the time to weakness in bowling.” The side sadly lacked Barton King, the greatest bowler the American continent has ever produced. P . H . Clark is very good still, but j he has a better chance when King is on at the other | end. A slow left-hander of the W. C. Lowry type would f be a big asset to the men of the Quaker City just now. On tour 29 years ago Lowry took 110 wickets for under 13 each, and though the sides met over here were all amateur ones there was plenty of good batting in them. To the last issue of the American Cricketer Crawford Coates, another Philadelphia crack of former days, now at Victoria, B.C., contributes some very interesting notes on the Australian Team in America. He was very |much impressed by their personal qualities ; they treat I bad decisions made by umpires as jokes, and are willing to do everything possible to please the crowd, even so far as to play exhibition innings after a day’s play of more than ordinary length. L. A. C o d y and P. S. Arnott seem to be “ just the , usual good batsmen,” he says. E. R. Mayne reminds him of Billy (W. W.) Noble. H. L. Collins “ can hit | but is more like Harry Brown.” Mr. Coates thinks 1there are at least three better wicket-keepers in Phila- j delphia than Campbell— doubtless Jordan, Winter and Scattergood. Of Warren Bardsley he says : “ From what I saw of him he is either very much off his form, or else on the decline as a batsman.” Warren may not have made many in Victoria, but he has been getting them since ! B u t this is a trifle puzzling. Mailey “ is called a googly bowler, but I should say he is too pacey for that. He has a very big break from the off, delivered with an j action which would lead one to suppose a leg-break is j coming.” W h ic h is exactly what constitutes a googly bowler ! Pace is not concerned in the matter, though it is unusual for a googly merchant to bowl much above medium pace. A. L. G ib s o n , of Essex and Ceylon fame, recently met with a motor accident at Welimada, on his way home via Nuwara Eliya from Badulla to Dimbula. The steering-gear got interlocked while the car was negotiating a nasty curve, and collision with a tree followed. Mr. Gibson was thrown out, but not, it would appear, badly hurt. But Mr. Radcliffe, of Dimbula, a crack Rugger man, who was with him, met with a nasty accident to his thigh in jumping out, and an operation had to be per­ formed at the Welimada rest-house, the patient being under chloroform for upwards of an hour. W i l l a r d G ra h a m , who bowled as well as any one on his side in the first Philadelphia v. Australia match, is a hitter of no mean order. On June 7 he made six successive 4’s off the bowling of R. Waad, his total for j the over (ten balls) being 27. T h e correspondent of the Adelaide Sporting Mail with the Australian Team— who would appear to be G. C. Campbell, the Adelaide University man— tells some amusing incidents of the voyage as far as Suva, Fiji, in the Mail’s issue of May 29. A t Auckland he rashly ventured the opinion that the harbour equalled t that of Sydney, and “ only saved himself from being I howled to his death by hastily gathering his coat tails