James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1883

6 LILLYWHITE'SCRICKETERS' A N N U A L. strong , at least in one respect its batting-in the field . It was doubly unfortunate in losing at the same time, and from the samecause of ill health, two such players as the Hon. Ivo Bligh and Mr. Frank Penn. Owing to similar reasons , it was deprived of two bowlers , whose services would have been of great help-Messrs . Cunliffe and A. Penn-so that the team had to contend against a series of misfortunes . In addition , ill -luck followed the eleven with great persistency ; as in the matter of the toss , and with the little bowling they had, their frequent failure in choice of innings wasvery prejudi- cial . Onlynine matches were played ; and of these , six were lost , only two won. LordHarris has never batted with better effect . His best innings were madefor Kent, and his average of close uponforty -two runs for fifteen innings wasthe best of anybatsman in County matches. Messrs . Tylecote and W. H. Patterson , both played good cricket , and George Hearne was generally successful , his batting displaying an improvement on the previous season . Messr. K e m p, R. S. Jones , Foord-Kelcey, and Mackinnonall showed a falling off ; and neither F. Hearne nor O'Shaughnessy came up to expectations . There was one sign of promise , though , in the batting , in the introduction of Mr. C. W. Wilson into the eleven . H e played two fine innings against the Australians , and another against Yorkshire , at Gravesend. H ebats in really good style , comes downvery hard on the ball , and in addition , is a good field as well as a fair change bowler. Thewant of a good bowler is still severely felt by the Kentish eleven . Wootton, at times , proved effective ; but his bowling has not improved as was hoped, and he was generally expensive . O n a good wicket , there was so very little in the Kentish bowling generally , that they could hardly hope to get any County eleven out even for a m o d e r a t etotal. The record of Sussex was even less encouraging than that of Kent. Out of ten matches, only two were won, and seven lost . Of the two victories , one was gained bythe barest majority of three runs for the other, they were verymuchindebted to the luck of the ground. The season was notable for the retirement of two players , who, in their day, have done Sussex loyal service -Lillywhite and Charlwood-the former after an unbroken term of twenty years . In batting , whenrepresented by the best eleven , Sussex had a fairly strong side . It was only on the rarest occasions , though , that it was able to collect really its best team; and the absence of Messrs. Trevor, Bettesworth, and N e w h a min several of the matches materially weakened the eleven . O n the whole, the batting figures were good ; it was in the other departments of the gamethat Sussex most urgently needs strength . A t one time, it was hoped that Juniper's left -handdelivery would prove to be of real service ; but these expectations were not fulfilled . A useful addition to the bowling was found. late in the season , in the person of Hide, who is mediumpace, very straight , and not easy to hit . Seneschal , a fast bowler, w h o mLincolnshire claims , webelieve , by birth , also figured in the eleven on a few occasions , with some little success . Hisdelivery is rather questionable ; but it is open to doubt whetherhe will be of any real and permanent value to Sussex , as a bowler. O n the whole, the Sussex eleven were the weakest of all the shires , in this particular branch of the game. In Derbyshire , cricket was still under a heavy cloud. One match only during the year was won; the other five were lost . The eleven have devel- oped of late anunfortunate habit of failing , whenever an extra effort is required ; andthe same weakness was visible in most of the matches last year. William Mycyoft, in spite of his increasing years and weight , bowled generally with great success . H a ycompletely lost his form, and was no longer a regular memberof the eleven . Mr. L. C. Docker, though his figures were good, was evidently out of practice . His batting lacked the confidence of the previous year. Mr.Evans, whobowled so well in 1881, was not able to play ; andMr. Shuker could not help the County much. Platts ' batting , and also that of Mr. R. P. Smith, showed a great falling off ; and Foster was mainly in- debted to his last score of 101 for his respectable average of 24. Cropper , a