James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1878

2 1 jlearne, Randon, and others. In this contest 841 runs were obtained for oidv twenty wickets, but this rate of scoring was thrown into the shade by a feat performed at Fenton Hall, on August 24 and 25, by Mr. Thornton’s eleven, who after getting Fenton Hall out for 128, secured the large sum of 671 runs for the loss of only three wickets. A t Fenton Hall in a previous match between Fenton Hall and Mr. M. C. Harris’s eleven, Messrs. F . C. Pollit and S. H. Meek, for the former side got 391 runs without the loss of a wicket, so that Fenton Hall will no doubt be after these records much affected by batsmen anxious to improve their averages. ' Turning to matches of more general importance, the Oval was the scene of some tall scoring in the match between the Gentlemen and Players. The beginning of this all-exciting contest was sensational, as Lockwood and Shrewsbury made a good commencement, obtaining 166 runs for the first wicket of the Players, and it was no small performance for the Gentlemen to meet the large total of 405 by the Players with a still larger one of 427. A t one time in this same encounter Mr. Homby, whose hitting was perhaps the cleanest seen during the season, contributed seventy-eight out of 101 runs, and while he was in 175 runs were got in a little over two hours. Mention has already been made of the big score of the South against the North at Prince’s in the Derby week, but an important feature of it ought also to be added, that Messrs. W . G. Grace and J. M. Cotterill added as many as 281 runs between the falls of the first and second wickets of the amateurs. The season, too, was memorable for the longest score made in a county match before the fall of a wicket. The heroes of this feat were Messrs. W . W . Read and Jupp, who out on 206 runs for Surrey against Yorkshire at the Oval, a number which, I believe, has been only once beaten in an important contest on the memorable occasion in 1869 when Messrs. W . G. Grace and B. B. Cooper made 285 runs for the first wicket of the Gentlemen of the South against the Players of the South. Jupp was the hero of another performance, only slightly inferior, at Maidstone, in the match between Surrey and Kent, and this time the first Surrey wicket fell for 189. By way of contrast to the large scores just enumerated, let us turn to the first match of the year between M.C.C. and Ground and Oxford University, in May, at Oxford. On that occasion the University, with their captain as absentee, “ made history ” to some purpose by being all dismissed for 12 runs in their first innings. I should be glad to know if this should not happen to be the smallest total in a good match, as the nearest approach to it that I can recall occurred on May 14, 1872, at Lord’s, when Southerton and Marten, of Surrey, trundled down a far from weak eleven of M .C.C. and Ground for 16, and the first seven wickets all fell without a run. A side out without a run is naturally a rare event, but the Bulwell Forest Club can claim to the distinction of having an eleven out at least without a 1un from the bat. The date of the match has not been sup­ plied, but it was against the Hucknall Torkard United Club, played on the Recreation Ground at Hucknall, and the Bulwell eleven were only in five overs for a total of nine runs, all of which came under the denomination of extras. No greater exploit with the ball was recorded than that of Mr. W . G. Grace in the return match between Gloucestershire and Notts at Cheltenham on August 13. Against a county eleven such a result might have been regarded as impossible, but in the second innings of Notts his last forty-one balls were delivered for one run and seven wickets, and the last twenty-five of these obtained the seven wickets without even a run from them. That week was certainly a lucky one for Mr. W . G. Grace’s bowling, as at Clifton on the following day against Yorkshire, in the first innings he took the last eight Yorkshire wickets in ten overs, and the last six batsmen for only the same