Cricket 1913

F eb . 15, 1913. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 41 only a score or so of other matches of anything like the same calibre have to be noted. Tw ice (in 1898-9 and in 1900-1), Mr. A. B. St. Hill, a prominent Barbadian supporter of the game, took teams to Trinidad, each team playing two matches with the colony. In 1896-7 Jamaica ventured from home, and played British Guiana twice and Barbados once. In 1905-6 Trinidad sent a strong team to Jamaica, and four times beat the island’s strength, and in the same season a combined team from St. Lucia and St. Vincent visited Barbados, and were twice beaten in an innings. A Philadelphian team in 1909 played three matches with All Jamaica (as well as some minor games) ; and in the same year (but not the same season), S. C. Snow took a team to Jamaica, which lost all four matches played with the island, and W. Shepherd conducted a side to play in British Guiana and Trinidad, losing all five matches. These last two teams were, I believe, entirely composed of coloured men, who, lacking the moral support of the white element, failed to give of their best. B l a c k a n d W h it e S id e b y S id e . The colour line is not drawn so definitely (should one say harshly ?) in the West Indies as it is in most com­ munities. The colonial sides have always— in recent years, anyway-— had in them men of the purest white blood, men of mixed race, and men of genuine unadul­ terated African descent. They have played side by side in all amity, with cricket for a talisman of goodwill and a bond of union ; and how well the coloured men have done may be indicated b y the mere mention of such names as those of Charles and Richard Ollivierre, Constantine, Woods, Snow, Layne, Burton, Cumber­ batch, John, C. A . and C. R . Browne-— and these are only a few out of many. T h e S m a l l e r I s l a n d s . Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Antigua and St- K itts have all had visits from English teams, though of late the tendency has been to cut out of the itinerary the smaller island s; Tobago, Montserrat and Dominica have not been visited. Barbados has sent at least one team to St. Lucia ; and the little islands have played among themselves. Antigua (where cricket flourished in the days when the Hon. J. S. Udal was Chief Justice, but has drooped of late, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Dominica, Grenada and Montserrat have all paid and received v isits; and in April, 1910, the Cork Challenge Cup was first played for (in Grenada) b y the three Windward Islands. Grenada won it, but at Castries, a year later, went under to the home side, St. Lucia, who also beat St. Vincent. The third tournament, in St. V incent last year, came to a premature end, owing to the misbehaviour of the crowd, incensed at seeing its idol, Richard Ollivierre, given out l.b.w. It cannot be claimed for these little communities that they are in any way important cricket en tities; but that they are not wholly negligible may be deduced from the fact that Grenada reared W. H. Mignon, a far better bowler than he appeared on his 1900 figures in England, and St. Vincent the two— one might say the three, for Helon, now dead, was also an excellent player— Ollivierres. Other cricketers of no mean ability who have played for one or another of the islands are G. M. Peter (St. Lucia), C. Phillips (Grenada), J. Joseph (Anti­ gua), C. Kennaway (St. Lucia), A. G. Hughes (Grenada), T. Layne (St. Vincent), C. F. Richardson (St. Lucia), and Dr. Nicholls, who in the two 1911 matches of St. Lucia for the Cork Cup took 22 wickets for 218 runs. S om e o f t h e B e s t . I take it that the three most outstanding figures in West Indian cricket have been those of Percy A. Good­ man, Harold Bruce Gardiner Austin, and Sydney G. Smith. The last-named has a more than West Indian fame ; but Goodman and Austin have also shown their prowess on the English greensward, though the latter did not do himself full justice here (perhaps the cares of captaincy handicapped him), and Goodman was singu­ larly ineffective as a bowler on both his trips. Some of Smith’ s bowling feats (he was less successful with the bat in those days) before he first came to Eng­ land in 1906 were wonderful. His left-handed slows had 20 wickets for 90 runs in two matches for Trinidad |v. A. B. St. H ill’ s team in January, 1901. In the two j games of the 1901-2 tournament at Bourda he took 15 |wickets for 237 ; in three successive matches against the IEnglish team a few months later he had 33 for 331, j including 9 for 34 and 7 for 51 in one of the “ tests.” j Six for 22 in an innings against Barbados in January, 1904, 8 for 78 for Trinidad v. the English Team in April, 1905, and 6 for 17 in the first innings (10 for 87 in the match) v. Barbados on the St. Clair Oval in January, 1906, were also among his deeds. Goodman has been going strong for fully twenty years. He may seem to lose interest at times, even to be slack ; but he can always rise to the occasion. He had not turned seventeen when he first played for Barbados, scored 74 v. Trinidad, and helped his brother Clifford to skittle out both Demerara and Trinidad at Bridge­ town. He was not yet nineteen when he took 10 wickets for 31 against Trinidad at Port of Spain. In 1894-5 he was absent from the island, I believe, and so did not play against the English Team of that season ; and for a few years thereafter his bowling was of more use than his batting ; but the tour in England in 1900 gave him greater experience, and since then he has always been a terror to bowlers. He reached his greatest height in rgo8-9, when in the tournamertt at Bridgetown his scores were r8o, IT5, and 16 not out. A big, finely-built man, Goodman perhaps carries a little more flesh than a cricketer would elect to bear in a hot clim a te; but he only needs a great occasion to bring out the best in him, and he is b y no means a has-been yet. In all matches of importance to date (in England as well as in the West Indies) he has totalled 2,535 runs, with an average of 28-80, and has taken 97 wickets at under 17 runs each. Harold Austin is nearly three years the junior of Goodman, and like him began young, being only seven­ teen when he first appeared for Barbados against Lucas’ s English Team. He shaped well then, and he has never looked back since. Only one century is down to his credit in big c ric k e t; but he has played many another brilliant innings, including 81 in 50 minutes v. Trinidad in 1908-9, and has captained the Barbados team admirably. Once he retired, but cricket lured him back again ; once he left the island for good, but Barbados called him back. He saw service during the Boer War, and for that reason it was that the First West Indian Team in England lacked his help. His total is over 2,000, and his average exceeds 26. Another youthful celebrity was George Challenor. He was not eighteen when he landed in England with