James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1889

P U B L I CC H O O LC R I C K E TIN 1888. 1 9 able to offer any excuses for the complete breakdown of the boys' batting . The bowling as a rule was steady andfairly straight , but there wasnot enough of it, and it was not backed up bygood fielding . Hence we find that their opponents often knocked upa long score , andtheir ownresponse was too often lamentably feeble . There was one boy in the team, Street , who worked hard with bat and ball, and we trust that as captain this season he will manage to instil some of his ownenergy and pluck into the rest of the eleven . The ill -success of the season must, we fear , be in part attributed to the carelessness of the captain , who ought , onhis '87 performances , to have proved a tower of strength to his side , but unfortunately he seemed to have lost all interest in the game. A. H. Harrison left unexpectedly at Christmas , and no doubt his loss was a serious blow, but even he wouldnot have been able to turn the tide . Nervousness and slackness ruined the team of '88 , andif they can be overcome we cannot see w h y Westminster should not do well this year-only let the captain remember that it is not good policy , at all events whenthe bowling is erratic , to dispense with the services of a long-stop . The Winchester eleven deserve the utmost sympathy for the disappointing result of the Etonmatch. Success has not greeted them any too often in this annual struggle , andtherefore it was the more galling to have certain victory snatched from them by the call of time . Andthey so thoroughly deserved to win, as their all -round play in this match was really fine . Against Magdalen and I Zingari they also showed very good form indeed , Leese playing a capital innings of 101 against the Oxford contingent ; while , after running up a good score themselves , they disposed of a strong I Zingari side for one under the century . Theabove were the best performances of the year, and against them w ehaveto place two disasters , each of a serious nature ; but we mayplead , in their excuse , that in the N e wCollege match their captain was invalided and could not appear , and the loss of their leader mayhave unnerved them . For the other failure we can find no extenuating circumstances , and they ought cer- tainly nottohave allowed themselves to be ousted by the " Foresters " for a paltry 31. These two defeats preclude us from declaring them to have been anything like a wonderful team, but they were a very fair lot , and wouldnot compareunfavourably with the majority of their predecessors . Turning to individuals , we must place Leese in a class by himself ; but he had two able coadjutors in Barker and Little , who scored steadily throughout the season , and a really trustworthy bowler in Hill . Hill had a lot of workto do, perhaps too much,buthedid it well , and until the end of the term he had not muchsupport ; thenBoger suddenly appeared on the scene , and achieved remarkable success . Clegg was very disappointing , but he made up for previous shortcomings by comingoff with a vengeance against Eton. For the doings of the rest wemust refer our readers to other pages of the Annual, and wecan offer no prophecy about coming struggles , as wehave foolishly forgotten to find out whatmembers of last year's eleven are still at Winchester . If r po t says true , Jardine of Fette was the best cricketer in Scotland last year; he certainly did wonders, and his average of 77, especially in such a wet season , is quite phenomenal. His doughty deeds with ball as well as bat entirely dwarfthose of the rest of the team. Only one of the others was even moder- ately successful in the scoring line , and as nearly half his total was amassed in one innings , we cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that , so far as batting was concerned , the Fettes eleven was a " one m a nteam." Buteven so they stand out clearly as the champions of Scotland , and their victory over Loretto was most decisive . In the main this victory wasdue to Jardine , but on this , as on other occasions , the bowling of Fleming and Boase helped to bring about the desired result . H o wmanyor howfew of the victorious eleven will do battle for their school this year weknownot ; but this we do know, that Jardine's place will be a very hard one to fill , and if they can find a worthy successor to their late captain , the Fettes team of 1889 may consider themselves extremely fortunate. Woodheadhas left Loretto ! H ehas been in the team for the last five years ,