Cricket 1914

A u g u s t 8, 1914. THE WORLD OF CRICKET. 409 Sbe TKflorlO of Cricket. E d i t o r : M r. A. C. M a c L a r e n . A s s is t a n t E d i t o r a n d M a n a g e r : M r. J . N. P e n t e lo w . 61, TEMPLE CHAMBERS, TEMPLE AVENUE, EMBANKMENT, LONDON, E.C. Correspondence should be addressed to the E d ito r ; su b ­ scriptions, advertisem ents, and all communications on business m atters to the Manager. Subscription ra te s : Inland, N ine Shillings per a n n um ; O verseas Ten Shillings. Pavilion Gossip. Also, we will make promise. So long as The Blood endures, I shall know that your good is mine ; ye shall feel that my strength is yours ; In the day of Armageddon, at the last great fight of all, That Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall. R u d y a r d K iplin g . A r m a g e d d o n may well be at hand. A s one writes the talk is all of War—War—W a r ! Cricket is naturally pushed into the background—naturally and rightly— big a part as the greatest of games plays in our national life. Y e t when the thrilling call—“ Who is on our side ? ”— goes forth, the debt the nation owes to cricket ought not to be forgotten. In spite of occasional squabbles—Sydney barracking, Bloemfontein incidents, and the like—cricket has perhaps done more than anything else to weld together in links of sympathy the Mother Country and her wide­ spread children. T h e y will come to our aid when they are needed, the gallant riders of the Austral plains, the men from the offices and the warehouses of the Austral cities ; the tanned men of the veldt and the dwellers in Jo’burg and Cape Town and Durban ; Canadian farmers and West Indian planters ; the stalwart sons of fair New Zealand ; ay, and other who are not of the British race, our loyal fellow- subjects of the King in the land of Hind— Those who kneel beside us At altars not Thine own— as Kipling has it in his noble " Hymn Before Action.’’ A n d among the bonds that bind them will be the bond of cricket. There will be cricketers among them in plenty, and others, non-players, in whom cricket has helped to keep alive the love of the Old Land. Even if for a time the game goes to the wall, what it has done in the past will still count. E ’en now their vanguard gathers, E ’en now we face the fray— As Thou didst help our fathers, Help Thou our host to-day ! Fulfilled of signs and wonders, In life, in death made clear— Jehovah of the Thunders, Lord God of Battles, hear ! F o r their averting of defeat outright by Northampton­ shire Sussex owed much to the rain, but more to their young players. With Robert Relf and H. L. Wilson absent, and Chaplin and Vine doing little, the pluck of Jupp, Ernest Relf, and A. K. Wilson saved the side. J u p p has done big things before ; he is rapidly playing his way into the forefront. But young Relf, who proved so good at need, has not impressed the critics greatly in former trials ; and A. K. Wilson, who scored 78 not out and 12, was playing in his first match for the county. W ils o n is an old Brightonian ; but his reputation has been made in local cricket since he left school, for in his one season in the Brighton College X I (1911) he did very little as a batsman, scoring only 130 with an average under 11. He took 37 wickets at a trifle over 17 each, it is true ; but it was as a batsman, not as a bowler, that he won his spurs last week-end. A t 43 Somerset’s capable veteran, Robson, has accom­ plished a bowling feat better on figures than anything else he has ever done in big cricket. His 14 for 96 v. Derby­ shire at Taunton last week is the sort of thing not to be forgotten lightly, the more especially as it was done for a side down on its luck. O n l y three times before has he taken as many as 10 wickets in a match— 12 for 80 v. Australia at Bath in 1900 ; 11 for 165 v. All India at Taunton in 1911 ; and 10 for 103 v. Yorkshire at Dewsbury in 1912. T h e County Championship table has undergone con­ siderable changes lately, and will probably undergo more during the busy Bank Holiday week ; but Surrey, Middlesex and Kent still fill the first three places. Essex and York­ shire have gone up, and Notts and Sussex have gone down. Even five successive w'ins outright—four of them in an innings—have failed, however, to put the White Rose brigade into a position among the vanguard. S u s s e x have been singularly in and out. In May they won two and lost two championship games. They played six more up to July 1 inclusive. Of these they won one. had a first innings lead in one, lost one, were headed on the first innings in two drawn games, and had no result in one match. Then came a period of success, three outright wins in succession by big margins, followed by a win on the first innings. Since then all four matches have gone wrong—two defeats outright, and two games lost in first innings—which is to say two points of a possible 20. B u t they fought most gallantly at the Oval, and, of course, the loss of Robert Relf has been a sore blow to them. W h e n this week’s matches have been worked off several of the counties will be within hail of the end of their pro­ grammes. Derbyshire, Northants, and Notts will have only four matches each left, Essex, Gloucestershire, Leicester­ shire, Middlesex, Somerset, Warwickshire, and Worcester­ shire five each. Lancashire and Yorkshire (the latter apart from extra games) will have six each to fulfil, Hants, Kent, and Sussex seven each, and Surrey as many as eight. A p a r t i a l parallel in minor cricket to the feat of Major W. L. Foster and the late R. E. Foster in making a century each in each innings of a match came very near accomplish­ ment last week. For Radley Rangers v. Mr. E. F. Simpkin- son’s X I on July 29 and 30 O. A. Reid scored 136 not out and 106, R. C. Keller 149 and 96. The match realised 1031 runs tor 33 wickets in the two days. T h e inquest on Albert Trott. was held on Saturday last, and the jury brought in a verdict of “ suicide during tem­ porary insanity.” Our sympathies go out to his brother Harry, one of the best of good fellows, and the other mem­ bers of his family. T h e number of centuries registered in first-class cricket up to the end of J uly (none was added on the last day of the week, August I ) was 140—37in May, 62 in J une, 41 in J uly.