Cricket 1914

3°6 THE WORLD OF CRICKET. J u ly 4, 1914. I t is a p ity th at E . P. Barbour should not be able to accompany the Australian team to South Africa. In his place R. L. Park, of Melbourne University, has been chosen — a player of undoubted promise, but quite a newcomer to first-class cricket. T h e less important states— those not playing for the Sheffield Shield, th a t is— have been ignored, apparently. Y e t Fennelly and, perhaps, Barstow, of Queensland, Hawson, of Tasmania, and one or two of the younger W est Austra­ lian players m ight have been considered. Perhaps they were, however ; it would seem that practically all the men were chosen, those who would not go replaced, and everything cut and dried before the Press got more than the barest fragment of news. And perhaps this is just as well. Un­ necessary heart-burning lias been caused b y premature selections and the discussion thereof in the past. T h e fact that H.M. the K ing visited Lord’s necessarily threw into the background the visit of the Prince of Wales, who accompanied him. Y e t perhaps there was more significance in the Prince’s visit. He and his brothers have always been really keen on the game— and that can scarcely be said of their royal father— and have more than once attended big matches as spectators for the love of it, not as " d u ty visitors.” It would be a rare pleasure to see a member of the United Kingdom ’s “ first fam ily ” chosen for E ton v. Harrow on his merits. There is no chance of his being chosen otherwise. Y e t the thing m ight happen. S o m e r s e t , like some other counties, do not find it easy to collect their strongest side. There were so many absen­ tees from th a t v. Northants th at it is a question whether the absentees could not have beaten the eleven which played. Assuming that M. P. B ajana and H. F. Garrett still possess the qualifications under which they played last year, these two and P. R. Johnson, B .'L . Bisgood, J. C. White, Capt. H. S . Poyn tz (who was playing for the M.C.C. the other day), A. E . Newton, Hardy, J. C. W . MacBryan, John Daniell, and C. G. Deane would make up an alternative team. Morgan, Maxwell, and Taylor were all allowed to go else­ where— unavoidably, no doubt— when they were showing promise, and are lost to the side now. T h e m ixture of F riday, Saturday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday starts now in vogue is bound to tell against a side here and there when a big match is on. Because of his selection for the R est v. the M.C.C. Team Sydney Smith was lost to Northants not for one match only, but for two games. A v e r y welcome visitor from the New England district looked in at the office the other day, and besides giving us a lot of information about the progress of the game in the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, added one or two to our stock of cricket yarns. O n one of the New England grounds— th at of the Providence Club, if memory serves— a number of youthful niggers, very scantily clad, are always among the spectators. A river flows on one side of the ground, which has no enclosure in that direction, and something short of a tre­ mendous hit will send a ball into the river. Then do the juvenile coloured citizens, shedding their clothes as they run, race for the honour and possible profit of retrieval. A y o u n g s t e r of eight or nine was the winner on one occasion. He came out w ith water streaming from his ebony skin, the ball proudly clutched in his right hand. Several men were feeling in their pockets for “ twelve bits ” -—the equivalent of our sixpence. But this son of Ham demanded “ a quarter,” i.e., a shilling. " I ’se want a quartah, gemmen,” says he, “ Oh nonsense ! ” replied someone, " twelve bits is quite enough.” Youn g ebony turned and flung the ball back into the river. “ Fetch her y o ’self, sah, if y o ’re so pizen m ean," he said w ith dignity ! S o m e umpires are nothing if not deliberate. B u t a certain New England umpire outdoes all rivals in this respect. A ball was bowled— a very high ball, which looked as if it would pitch yards behind the stumper— a wide all over, so the umpire considered. N ot so the batsman. W ith an acrobatic leap and a perpendicular bat he made a most extraordinary stro k e ; and that deliberate umpire was actually calling " wide ” what time the leathern sphere sailed over the top of a tree on the border of the ground ! A k e e n player and liberal supporter of a New England club, whose ground is on the edge of a morass so treacherous and impassable that a ball h it into it is literally a lost ball, there being no chance of its recovery, was not quite nicely treated by the club in question. There was an influx of new members, and he was quietly shelved. Clubs were few ; but he was not to be robbed of his weekly game. He hunted up players, and formed a new club. H is new club met his old one, on the old club’s ground, and he went in first. The opening delivery was a long hop outside the leg stump. He swung round, got it nicely, and hit it into the Slough of Despond. “ There goes three dollars ! ” he thought. The fourth ball of the same over was just such another. Again a m ighty swipe— “ six dollars n o w ! ” W ithin a few minutes he got another chance and raised the account to nine dollars. Then he felt satisfied. He had never voiced his grievance ; but he had had a cricketer’s vengeance. T h r e e dollars— a trifle over twelve shillings— sounds a p retty stiff price for a ball. Bu t there is an ad valorem duty of 40 per cent, on manufactured leather goods imported into the States, and, of course, apart from this, there are freight charges to put up the price. I n the district from which our genial visitor hails an Englishman of 71— believed to be an old professional cricketer— still plays, and never misses a match for his club. His name is Draper ; can he be one of the Drapers— there were two, we think— who played for K ent in the seventies ? T h e r e is a Portuguese club (at New Bedford) which includes several players of more than average a b ility ; and the Providence C.C. numbers among its best cricketers two or three men of Scottish names who were born and learned all their cricket in the latest addition to the list of republics. F a l l R i v e r has several West Indian coloured players who greatly strengthen the side. They are for the most part employed on the steamers plying from that port, and in consequence are unavailable on some Saturdays. The team without them is nothing like full strength. “ T h e experiment of Essex in taking a match to Colchester met with much success. A t one tine there were four bishops on the ground.” —-E. W. Ballantine, in the Evening Standard. I f E. W. B. will let us know the special tariff for bishops, we shall be better enabled to get at an idea of just how big a success— in a pecuniary sense— the experiment was. But if the bishops came in a t ordinary rates— well, there really doesn’t seem much in it ! E. W. B. considers that the Horsham Town Hall looks like ajjathedral. It never struck him who writes this (the other man, not the Editor) at all that way. It is not at all