James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1890

7 6 LILLYWHITE'SCRICKETERS' A N N U A L. (1) Middlesexv. Surrey. Oval, August8, 9, 10. Neither side had quite its full strength , although Middlesex had a good batting team. Owingto an injured arm, Mr. O'Brien was practically of little use, while Maurice Readand W o o dwere both incapacitated on the other side . Thoughthere had been rain just before the match, the wicket played very well , andSurrey, going in first , punished all the Middlesex bowlers severely . All the first seven batsmen got double figures , and the lowest score was Lockwood's 21. Abel and Mr. Key (each of w h o mgot 85) put on 147 in an hour and three quarters , and Mr. Read(115), and Lohmann, later on, also scored fast ; the latter credited with 79 out of 101 while he was in, and without a chance . Mr. Read wasin three hours and a quarter with one chance only in his innings . Middlesex didnot go in till after lunch on the second day, and whenstopped play at 4.20 , hadmade83 for the loss of two wickets . Theonly chance for Middlesex on the third morning was to play for a draw, and, thanks to several mistakes in the field towards the last , they very nearly saved the game. Mr. Stoddart played admirable cricket in the first innings for 72, but still Middlesex had to follow on in aminority of 271. Theymadea bad start , too, whenthey went in again , and whensix wickets were downfor 67 the end seemed close at hand. Somefaulty fielding , however, enabled the later batsmen of Middlesex to makea better show, and, after all , had only twenty-five minutes to spare . Surrey's 507 was the highest score of the year in an inter -county match . Surrey won by an innings and74 runs . Surrey , 507 ; Middlesex , 236 and 197 ; total , 433 , (2) M i d d l e s e xv. N o t t s. Nottingham , August 12 and 13 . Though Middlesex were without Messrs . Scott and O'Brien , the bowling wasstrengthened by the addition of Mr. F. G. J. Ford, the Cambridge captain , and the result was an improvement in the all -round cricket of the side . Owingto rain the ground at the outset was against fast run-getting , and but for Shrewsbury, whowasbatting for two hours and fifty minutes for 54 without a chance , Notts wouldhavemade, in all likelihood , only a moderate score . O nthe other hand, the first innings of Middlesex was really the work of one batsman, Mr. Nepean, who contributed 53 out of 105, and gave nothing like a chance . Flowers ' batting , too, redeemed the general failure of the Notts ' batsmen whenthey went in a second time. Goingin third wicket downat 40, he was sixth out at 164 , and of the 124 got during his stay, he was responsible for 78-an innings of great judgmentand pluck. W h e nplay ceased on the second night , Middlesex had made27 of 223 wantedto win, for the loss of one of their best batsmen (Mr. A. J. Webbe) and, as rain prevented any play on the following day, the game ended in that con- dition . Mr. Nepean's all -round cricket was the feature of the match. Besides making 70 runs for once out, he took nine wickets for 73 runs. Notts , 161 and 166 ; total , 327. Middlesex , 105 and 27 (one wicket) ; total , 132. Mr. Nepean (2ndinnings Notts ) Attewell (1st Middlesex) ود O v e r s. M a i d e n s. R u n s. W i c k e t s. 3 1 . 3 2 7 1 3 1 0 3 9 4 0 6 6 (3) M i d d l e s e xv, Y o r k s h i r e. Halifax , August 15, 16, and 17. Rain prevented any play on the third day, and destroyed an apparently good chance of an interesting match . The wicket at the start was slow , but