Cricket 1914

132 THE WORLD OF CRICKET. M a y 9, 191. | five, and the Transvaal, w ith eight South African repre­ sentatives in the team, also lowered its colours. The same team represented South A frica in all the five matches, a circumstance unique in test match history. This team consisted of G. A. Faulkner, M. Hathorn, A. D. Nourse, R. O. Schwarz, W . A. Shalders, P. W . Sherwell, (captain), J. H. Sinclair, S. J. Snooke, L. J. Tancred, A . E . E. Vogler, and G. C. White. Nourse was from Natal, Snooke from Western Province, Vogler from Eastern Province ; the rest were all Transvaalers. A ll played their parts well in the five games, and each had his d ay or days of signal success. In the first test, a t Johannesburg, Nourse made i n for once out, and his fine batting and Sherwell’s nerve and p luck pulled their side through by one w icket at the finish. B u t White (81) and Faulkner, who bowled very effectively, must not be forgotten. Sinclair’s 66 was top score in the second match (Johannes­ burg), and Schwarz bowled successfully. In the third (Johannesburg again) White made 46 and 147, Hathorn 102, Sinclair 28 and 48, and Tancred 73 in the second innings, while Snooke bowled in deadly fashion. A t Cape Town in the fourth— England’s only win— W hite made 41 and 73, and Sinclair bowled best. In the last (Cape Town) Vogler, going in No. 11, scored 62 not out, Snooke made 60, Faulkner 45 ; and Sinclair, Nourse, and Schwarz all bowled well. Throughout Sherwell proved himself a fine w icket­ keeper and a splendid captain, and Shalders, w ithout doing anything big, was always making useful scores. His best effort against the team was for the Transvaal, when he scored 66. That South A frican side was a rare hard one to beat. I t m ay be long before the sub-continent has again quite so well-balanced a side, armed a t all points, and great in the moment of stress. Outside these tests and the Transvaal game, the best performances against the team were b y S. J. Snooke (80) and S. E . Horwood (74) in the second Western Province match, by A. D. Nourse (119) in the first Natal match (at Durban), and b y W . K . Thomson (48 and 47) in the second N atal match (at Maritzburg). The Sixth English Team (1909-10) was captained by H . D . G. Leveson-Gower, and included F. L. Fane, M. C. Bird, G. H. Simpson-Hayward, Capt. E . G. W ynyard, N . C. Tufnell, Hobbs, Rhodes, Denton, Frank Woolley, B lythe, Buckenham, Thompson, and Strudwick. Against this aggregation of talent South A frica won three of the five tests, and the Transvaal also beat the English­ men in one match, by the h eavy margin of 308 runs. South African battin g had unquestionably improved. Faulkner (twice), Nourse, White, J. W . Zulch, and Louis Strieker all scored centuries against the team. The bowling has not made any corresponding advance ; on the contrary, it has deteriorated. Vogler (36 wickets) and Faulkner (29) had to do nearly all the effective work in the tests. The other ten bowlers utilised only took 20 wickets among them. Sinclair was not as good as of old, and others had fallen away too. The first test match was won by South Africa, after a splendid struggle, b y 19 runs. This was at Johannesburg. The second was at Durban, and here the home side won b y •95 runs. A t Johannesburg, again, England pulled through b y 3 wickets after a great fight, D avid Denton following up two centuries in one match v. Transvaal w ith 104 in the first innings of this. A t Cape Town the Afrikanders made theVubber safe, winning b y four w ickets ; and the splendid partnership of 221 for the first w icket in the fifth match by Hobbs and Rhodes came too late to be of any avail. A s to the Seventh English Team, back home only the other day, one need write nothing here. They have done something to redress the balance. J- N. P. Mr. Sydney Smith, Junr. O f t h e A u s t r a l ia n B o a r d o f C r i c k e t C o n t r o l . T h e r e is no more frequently or more hotly debated subject in the world of cricket than th at of the Australian Board of Control, its ways and its works. On the one side, massed solidly, are the Australian players of other days, almost to a man, w ith a number of present-day players, backed b y a strong following in South Australia and Victoria and a proportionately weaker one in the eastern states ; on the other the Board itself, w ith many a cricket legislator unknown to fame as a player, a few of the older first-class players, of whom Iredale and McAlister are the most prominent, a big m ajority of the cricketers of New South Wales, a number of the Victorian players, including most of those belonging to big clubs other than the Melbourne C.C., and (so it is claimed for them) most followers of cricket not personally prejudiced in favour of the old system. It is not for us to take sides, and we have no intention of doing so. The Editor of the W o r l d o f C r i c k e t numbers among the determined opponents of the Board several personal friends. B u t that fact need not lead anyone to assume bias on his part. The Board, it is evident, has worked hard in the cause of Australian cricket. If it has blundered— as no doubt it has a t times— that is but to say that it is human and therefore fallible. If it has trodden hard on corns— and no doubt it has done so— vested in­ terests were never interfered w ith w ithout something of the sort happening. The best thing for Australian cricket would undoubtedly be the healing of the feud. For that end to be accomplished, the principle of give-and-take must be accepted on both sides. Then shall the lion lie down with the lamb, and (as an Australian writer picturesquely put it lately) Noble fall upon Mr. McElhone’s neck and embrace him. B y the way, in the old folk-lore stories Noble was the lion’s name. Bu t one cannot quite see Mr. McElhone in the role of lamb ! After him— and perhaps Mr. E . E. Bean— the most talked of member of the Board has been Mr. Sydney Smith, junr., its Hon. Sec., about whom a correspondent in Sydney has sent us some interesting notes. Our correspondent starts at the beginning, not exactly with Adam or Noah (did they play deck cricket on the A rk ?), but w ith the Nvrens and Lord Frederick Beauclerk and W illiam Beldham. Considerations of space have led to the cutting out of all this. A fter all, the men named were not Australians ; if they were aware of Australia’s existence — Beauclerk at least must have been, for he was a lettered man and a clergyman, though b at and ball pleased him better than book— it was only vaguely, as an island in­ habited chiefly by blackfellows and people who had left their country for their country’s good. The political history of Australian cricket began some time in the fifties, when inter-colonial cricket was first played, and to th a t period we must make a jump. V ictoria and Tasmania met before Victoria and New South Wales did ; but 1855-6, when the matches between the last-named two, keen rivals ever since, began, is the most significant date in early Australian cricket annals. An association for the government of cricket was formed in New South Wales, the parent colony, in or about 1859— - the very date is uncertain. The V .C .A . was founded a few years later. But neither the N .S.W .C.A . nor the V.C.A . had anything to do w ith the movement th a t gave the first big impetus to cricket in the far south land. That was left to private enterprise. Messrs. Spiers & Pond brought out the first English team (1861-2), and laid the foundations of far more than they knew. They were hotel proprietors at Melbourne, and they became a firm of world­ wide fame ; they brought out a side of cricketers to teach the rudiments and slaughter eighteens and twenty-twos, and fifteen years later Australia beat England in the first test match, eleven to eleven, while five years after th at the flower