Cricket 1913

J u ly 19, 1913. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 411 THE BRITISH BULLDOG : WA S THAT A CRY .FOR H E L P ? ” Gentlemen v. Players. SOME G R EA T GAMES OF A FAMOUS SER IE S. B y P e rc y C ross S tan ding, Author of " Cricket of To-day.” ' Gentlemen v. Players ” is an institution dating from 1806, when the old Lord’s Ground witnessed the first match under this alluring title. A t first it was customary for the professionals to allow the amateurs more than eleven players, so as to make the odds more even ; but on July 7, 1822, the Gentlemen recorded their first win in an eleven-a-side contest. W ith the rise of the Surrey Club, an annual fixture became the fashion at the Oval also, but not until 1866 did the Gentlemen win there. Celebrating the event. The late Mr. W. Burrup, then Secretary of the Surrey C.C.C., was so delighted that he presented every member of the winning team with a bat. (Meanwhile “ W. G .” had “ arrived,” and in that same year, 1866, he scored 173 not out for Gentlemen of the oouth v. the Players of the South.) Devices to equalise. B y a peculiarly odd arrangement, in the earlier games of the series the professionals used to “ lend ” the Gentlemen one or two layers to strengthen their side ; still more odd, perhaps, was an innovation whereby the Players (who won easily) used wickets 27m. by Sin. to the Gentlemen’s 22in. b y 6in. In 1825 the ama- eurs played sixteen men and in 1827 seventeen, and the profes­ sionals eleven, and won in both games. Between 1853 and 1865 the Gentlemen did not win a match ; but, as a later set-off to his, the Players’ victory of 1885 was their first win at Lord's in eleven years. A Tie Match. In 1882, when the Players won at the Oval, they were beaten at Lord’s by eight wickets, thanks to good bowling and fielding and to centuries by A. P. Lucas and C. T . Studd, who by adding 204 together set up what remained a record for some time. B ut in the following year the Oval match'provided the genuine sensa­ tion of a tie— the only one in the long series of games. The I scores were— Players 203 and 181, Gentlemen 235 and 149. Those were the days of Bates, Barlow, Barnes, Flowers, and other men long since passed into retirement. A few of these matches were also played a t Prince’s. It was in 1871 three Gents, v. Players contests were first fixed up, the third being at Hove for Lillywhite’s benefit. In it W. G. Grace was bowled first ball at his first knock, but at his second hit up 217 ! W ith this for his highest score, the Champion actually compiled 5,428 runs in these matches alone between 1865 and 1898 ! Other scorers of over a thousand runs in Gen­ tlemen v. Players were G. F. Grace, Gunn, Shrewsbury, Abel, W. W. Read, U lyett, A. N. Hornby, Barnes, Jupp, and E. Lockwood. Jackson’s Match. One of the most extraordinary struggles in the whole series was emphatically the Lord’s match of 1894. This was a great game for F. S. Jackson. A fter he had put together a fine score of/63 in the amateurs’ first and only total of 224, the popular Jacker ” and S. M. J. Woods bowled unchanged through both innings of the Players, who could only muster totals of 107 and | 108. B ut Jackson’s figures were much the more impressive, his 12 victims costing only 77 runs as compared with Woods’s 6 for 124. Jackson had another triumph in the same encounter on the same historic turf two seasons later, when Ranjitsinhji and A. O. Jones first appeared for the Gentlemen a t Lord's, their side winning comfortably by six wickets. Jackson (57 and not out 40) and Ranjitsinhji (47 and not out 51) together won the game in brilliant style. W .G .’s Birthday Match. A t Lord’s in 1898, the annual fixture was arranged in honour of W . G. Grace’s fiftieth birthday, and the G.O.M. signalised the occasion b y scoring 43 and 31 not out, though the Players won by 137 runs. In these contests of giants W . G. scored fourteen centuries. The Oval fixture for a time lost much of its significance— as a famous player expressed it to me, “ They are falling over themselves to be asked to play at Lord’s, but they don’t care a hang about the Oval.” In recent years, however, much of the old prestige has been regained for the match at Kennington. In 1899 the pros, totalled 647 there (195 b y Abel and 134 not out by Hayward), but found the tables turned at Lord's, where the Gentlemen put together 480 and then got their opponents out twice for about 400. A t Kennington in 1901 Bobby Abel made 247— the highest ever hit in these matches. The Players’ great win. Nearly, if not quite, the most wonderful of these fights was that which the pros. won. by two wickets a t Lord's in 1900, after their opponents had led by 500 runs ! Such a result was ren­ dered possible by the fine batting of Brown, Tom Hayward and A b e l; for the Gentlemen R. E . Foster achieved his great ” double ” of 102 not out and 136, making C. B. F ry’s two innings of 68 and 72 look quite moderate. S. M. J. Woods captained the amateurs, and is supposed not to have handled his attack quite judiciously. In 1902 a t Lord’s, Lockwood’s splendid all­ round play (100 runs and 9 wickets for 106) helped the pros, to an innings' win. Fry and Maclaren. The marvellous game at St. John's Wood in 1903, when Maclaren with 168 and F ry with 232 (both undefeated) were able to “ declare ” at 500, provided a sensation. And the next year witnessed the only century (121) hit by Ranjitsinhji in these battles, as well as two separate hundreds b y John King ! In 1905 Jackson skippered the Gentlemen, but could not lead them to victory, albeit Walter Brearley bowled in his finest form and Pelham Warner (59 and 97) and Spooner (81) batted superbly. Last year saw what can scarcely fail to be the last appearance of Ranjitsinhji in Gentlemen v. Players. This was at the St. John’s Wood Ground, where he hit up an admirable 60. Nor is he the only man whose passing is to be mourned. We shall see no more of Stanley Jackson or of Archie Maclaren, while at the moment of writing it looks almost as though Spooner and C. B. Fry had made up their minds to have done with cricket while still at the height of their play. More’s the pity 1