James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1888

2 LILLYWHITE'SCRICKETERS' A N N U A L.. C H A P T E R I I. C R I C K E TIN 1 8 8 7. B YI N C O G. Demortuis nil nisi bonum. In speaking of the dead, at least of the season last departed , it is satisfactory , too , to be able , and with sincerity , to say little or nothing that wasbad. A genial summergenerally , with few, very few, inter- ruptions from rain , cricket was played under the most pleasant auspices , under themost comfortable surroundings . A more enjoyable time has not, in fact , been passed by cricketers for many years , and as, in addition , the game itself has never perhaps been in a more prosperous condition , there is every reason to look back on the cricket season of 1887 with feelings of unmixed satisfaction a n dhope. Thefact that the year just over witnessed the celebration of the centenary of the Marylebone Club would have alone entitled it to be marked with a white stone in the Cricket Calendar. True to its ancient traditions , the Marylebone Club spares neither time nor moneyto encourage and develop the national g a m eof the country , and there is no better proof of the universal apprecia- tion of its efforts for a hundred years than the unanimity with which its position as the head of the cricket world is recognized by cricketers of all classes and in all parts . Under the fostering care of the Marylebone Club cricket has flourished like the green bay-tree , and those whohave charge of its administra- tion havenot only good reason to look back on the work the M.C.C. has done during the first century of its existence , but also with every feeling of hope for t h efuture. Cricket was never, it m a ybe safely asserted , more popular than at the present time, and it is eminentlysatisfactory to be able to saythat the expecta- tions formed, bythe general increase of interest in the better class of cricket , were thoroughly fulfilled by the experience of 1887. In some parts , in the Midlands more particularly , there are pessimists who urge that county matches were not so well supported as in some previous years . This decline they attribute-and no doubt with a certain amount of reason to the growing tendency of some few batsmen towards a style of play calculated to makethe gamemonotonous, and, as a general consequence , wearisome to the spectators . If such assertions are justified by facts , though those who are most affected have, in a great measure, the remedy in their ownhands, there is need, and pressing need , of immediate as well as combined legislative action . At the same time w e are confident that the collective wisdom of those who guard the interests of the leading clubs , will find a speedy recipe for anything tending to reduce the public interest in our grand old game. O nthe other hand, wehave facts to prove that generally the prospects of cricket were never brighter than they are at the present time , and there is certainly not the smallest reason, as far as one can judge, for anything but an optimistic view of the situation. The recorder of the season of 1887 , too , may fairly be pardoned for an expression of satisfaction that the success which attended the gamewaswholly andsolely the result of English cricket . It is true that a team representing the Gentlemen of Canada did visit the mother country , and with results , to a certain extent , satisfactory . It could hardly be claimed , though , that the object