Cricket 1913

August 23, 1913. CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 533 Cricket: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 25, WHITE STREET, MOOR LANE, E.C. SA TU RD A Y , AUGU ST 23, 1913. Letters for the Editor should be addressed to M r . J. N . P e n t e l o w , Malvern, Steyning, Sussex. Advertisements, Subscriptions, & c . , should be sent to : The Manager of C r i c k e t , 25, White Street, Moor Lane, E .C . The following are the subscription rates:— United. Kingdom. Abroad. One Year ... ... ... 6s. 3d. ... 7s. 6d. The 24 Summer Numbers 5s. od. ... 6s. od. The 6 W inter Numbers ... is. 3d. ... is. 6d. pavilion (Sossip. When Tim e of all our Hannelled hosts Leaves only the renown, Our Cracks, perhaps, fnay join the ghosts That roam on Windmill Down, Where shadowy crowds will watch the strife And cheer the deeds of wonder Achieved by Giants, whom in life A Century kept asunder. A lf r e d C o ch r a n k . What a fascination the very name o f Hambledon nas for the enthusiast who cares for the deeds o f the past— the praiser o f famous men and our fathers who begat us ! These columns form part o f my Sunday’s tale o f work, as a rule; and this particular Sunday has brought me a long letter— it would fill three pages o f the paper, and I wish I cou ld print it — from one o f the greatest enthusiasts I know. Last week he made a pilgrimage on fc o t to Hambledon, saw Mr. E . W halley T ooker and his son preparing a pitch for the annual match at Broadhalfpenny Down, treated rustics at the Bal and Ball Inn, d id homage to the granite monument erected in 1908 , talked with many people at Hamble­ don itself— and says he hopes to g o back for a whole week next A u g u s t! He sends me dried grass plucked from Broad- halfpenny and W indm ill Downs, and flowers from the grave o f that sweet singer, T om Sueter. W h o were the la d y and gentleman who, a year or so ago, left money with the verger that he might put honest Tom ’s grave into decent order, I wonder ? But the lovers o f the past are in a small minority in these days o f bustle, I fear; and the voice o f the motor-hooter is a sound more welcome to many ears than the song o f the larks on B roadh a lfp enn y ; and a fashionable crowd at Ascot, G oodw ood , or Roehampton, a gathering o f the motor-mad at Brooklands, more welcome than the wide common spaces, sweet with the w a ft o f gorse and w ild Ihyme, on which our ancestors p la y ed the game. Yet some there be still who find these g o o d— the blue sky and the far horizon, the birds’ song and the sweet smells — more than all, perhaps, that smell o f crushed grass that every cricketer must surely lo v e ! It came as quite a surprise to me to learn that Hambledon is a good -sized village. Somehow I had imagined it as a decayed, sleepy little hamlet. But. the “ Bat and Ball ”— pictures o f which may have given me that notion— is over two miles from the village itself. The card o f the Hambledon C.C. fo r 1913 lies before me. Cricket still reigns in its old-tim e haunt. The 'club began operations on Easter Monday, although that date fell as early as March 24 lliis year. Thirty-one matches, including iecond and junior team fixtures appear on the card. Mr. W ha lley -T ook er is the side’s captain, and the hon. sec. is a real enthusiast, Mr. Burton F. J. Cooper. B y accident— or by design—-was it that the cricket critic o f the Daily 7 elegrafh, in a paean o f praise o f Jcssop, wrote thus: “ Jessop makes 30 o d d in ten minutes, and is then caught. His rival (Smith) has compiled 23 in an hour and a ha lf, and many a precious h a lf-v o lley has he let go unpun ish ed ’’ ? Scarcely by design, one imagines.' The one and on ly has no “ rival Smith.” It w ou ld hard ly be g oin g too far, in spite o f what A lletson, Kenneth M acLeod, Hubble, Fender, H ayw ood , Tennyson, and other quick scorers have done, to say that he still has no serious rival at all. I don ’t remember any o f the Smitns who is specially unaggressive. Certainly not Warwickshire’s “ F iger” Smith, who believes in making w illow and leather meet h a rd ; or Sussex’s C. L . A ., lost to us now, farm ing out Hurstpierpoint w a y ; or that m ighty smiter, Ernest Sm ith; or the Gloucestershire wicket-keeper; or Haigh Smith, o f Hants, who is anything but a pot- terer; and most assuredly not S. G. W hy, in Gentle­ men v. Players at L o rd ’s last month the ex-T rin idad man actually moved faster than the Id ol at one stage o f their fine partnership! The D . T.’s is surely some suppositive Smith. But the choice o f name is scarcely happy. I should have called the other S to d g e r s ! A correspondent who complains that I am too severe 011 Transatlantic methods o f reporting cricket matches asks me if I don ’t admire this Philadelphian description o f how a Colt named Greener dismissed “ Ranji ” when the latter took his team to America in 1 8 g g : “ F rom across the seas came the K in g o f Cricketers to be cleaned (sic) bow led by a boy. D on ’t call it a fluke. There was no fluke about it. A nd thereto hangs a little bit o f friendly’ advice to English cricketers. When you p lay with a C olt, watch out lest he have the heels o f a horse .v “ I h<. Britisher can’t h ide from anyone the fact that he feels superior. A ll right. But it does not