Cricket 1913

518 CR ICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. August 16, 1913. T h e Rhodesian trip is not quite certain. The S .A .C .A . is keen on its com ing off, as the English team w ill certainly wish to see the V ictoria Falls and the M a toppos; and the proposed guarantee has been reduced from £6oo to £500 in order that it may not fa ll through. A lbert R e lf has been asked to join the M .C .C . team, which means, I shou ld imagine, that negotia­ tions with Barnes have fallen through. Th e Sussex man was a member o f Warner’s side in igc> 5 - 6 ; Thom pson was in the ig o g -io team. Between these two there is very little to choose, though I take R e lf to be the better batsman and field, i f Thompson is perhaps the deadlier bowler. I f D ouglas R obinson can get the W a r Office’s consent he w ill go. But the W ar Office refused its consent to Captain E. G. W 'ynyard’s going to Aus­ tralia in 1897 - 8 , on the ground, i f I remember righ tly, that officers in the A rm y were not em­ p loy ed for the purpose o f p la y in g crick e t! John Gunn goes to South A frica— not as a mem­ ber o f the M .C .C . side, but as coach at Durban, where George C ox was in i g n -12 and 1912 - 13 . Dolphin, the capable Yorkshire wicket-keeper, is not the first stumper o f his name, though it is rather an unusual one. The late Canon John Maxim ilian Dolph in , o f Southwell Minster, kept wicket fo r Marlborough in the fifties and fo r O x fo r d in i 860 . Another coincidence— cricket and the Church again ! Archdeacon K ilner is Bishop-Designate o f R ichm ond, Yorkshire. But whether the Archdeacon is a player I know not. Certainly the playei is not an A rchdeacon ! There have been several cricket fatalities o f ia te; but I d o not think that two have chanced in one week, as was the case during June, i 8 g g , when a lad o f fifteen was k illed by the b low o f a ball at Shepherd’s Bush, and a little girl o f ten in North Hampshire. The Cantab, Bruce Hylton-Stewart, had a narrow squeak from death at Bath. M edical opinion is that a difference o f an inch one way w ou ld prob­ ab ly have meant a mortal blow . He w ill p la y no more cricket this season ; but if in residence again— which is rather d ou b tfu l— he ought to have a chance o f his blue at Cambridge in i g i 4 - W riting o f Cambridge and o f blues reminds one o f E . R . W ilson , whose reappearance fo r Yorkshire after eleven years’ absence from the eleven and ex ­ cellent bow ling in his first match have pleased everyone. W ilson is a real cricketer, one o f the right sort, g o o d all-round, and p la y in g the game as it should be played. H e and T . L. T a y lo r, another man o f whom not enough has been seen in first-class cricket, first appeared in the county eleven in i 8 g g . T a y lo r, by the way, was a contemporary o f E . R .’s elder brother, C. E. M., in the Uppingham X I . E . R .’s debut fo r Yorkshire was in the match with Somerset at Hu ll, Ju ly i o , 11 , and 12 , i 8 g g . H e scored 55 and 0 , and took 3 wickets fo r 50 . C. E. M. hurt his hand so b a d ly while fielding that S. M. J. W o o d s agreed that T . H . Hirst should take his place. These substitutions arouse the ire o f some peop le; but it is curious that the offence is usually comm itted by a rare g ood sportsman. W o o d s is a case in point. It was J. F . Byrne who let Nason take Dw yer’s place fo r Sussex v. Warwickshire at Hastings in 1006 . A n d other instances might be adduced. The match at Birmingham was E . R . W ilson ’s tenth county championship game. In the nine in which he p layed between i 8 gg and ig 02 he totalled 287 runs, with average just over 26 , and took 8 wickets for 17 7 . W ilson owed his blue— though he cou ld scarcely have missed it in the long run, anyway— to a splen­ d id double performance fo r Mr. A . J. W ebbe’s X I. against his ’Varsity. D ra fted into the visiting team as an emergency, he made 117 not out and 7 ° in totals o f 224 and 178 , and his second innings was p la y ed on a ruined pitch. T h e L igh t Blues were weak in bow ling in ’gg, and some o f the Australians took heavy toll o f their trundlers. Clement H ill and Gregory made cen­ turies; Jones and H ow ell hit 21 in an over (Jones a 5 , 4 from an overthrow, H ow ell four 4 ’s) off W ils o n ; and when Darling and W orra ll went in to get 123 to win in 75 minutes, they made 50 in h a lf an hour and 74 more in another 28 m inu tes! But W ilson d id not bow l in that innings. F ielder's performance in bow ling fifte e n no-balls (besides those scored from ) in an innings reminds a correspondent o f a peculiar series o f coincidences in which no-balls p layed a part. I he match was Streatham v. Beckenham in June, i 8 yg. In one over H. L . Dawson bow led J. H . T o d d twice with no­ balls, and in the next over got him with a ball that was not called. When Streatham batted, H . S. Barkworth was caught off a no-ball, and imme­ d iately after was missed in the same place off the same bowler from another n o -b a ll! Though whether a failure to take a catch after no-ball has been ca lled should be reckoned a miss is a debatable o cin t. I cbouln say. Th e Freeman incident at Derby has received less attention than it should have had. I am quite w ill­ ing to believe that Freeman was not sure that he was out, and I am, therefore, on ly taking the in­ cident as a text, and in d oing so convey no re p ro a c h as to this particular case. . _