James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1891

2 0 LILLYWHITE'SCRICKETERS' ANNUAL. Westminster last season than there has been sometimes . Theyretain next year most of their best players , and will , we hope , be stronger and more fortunate than they were in 1890. Enthusiasm throughout the school is sure to bear good fruit erelong. Wellington had an eleven decidedly above the average , and deserve a better record than the season presents . Time robbed them of an almost certain win against Sherborne , and they beat Haileybury easily ; but their record stands at 2 victories , 4 draws, and 4 defeats . The great dis- appointment of the year was, of course , the abandonment of the Charterhouse match-at first owing to bad weather, and afterwards failure in search of another date for it. Indeed, b a dweatherand wetwickets mustbe held re- sponsible in manywaysfor a result less satisfactory than was hoped for. A t the same time, there was a decided weakness in bowling which could only be varied to become erratic . Birley and Tragett , after promising well , never really improved ; and Denny, mediumpace right -hand, although unlucky, was decidedly the most useful bowler. Thefielding , again, was good on paper ; but catches were missed in the most unaccountable way. The feature of the eleven wasits batting , anddoubtless , had the season been dry, some exceptional things in the scoring line might have been done. MordauntandW o o d-whowill both appear again next year-have the makings of first -class players ; they were wellbackedup by Birley , Blundell , and Beard, and would certainly have been strengthened by Macnaghten, had he been able to play oftener . The eleven waswell captained by Mordaunt, and would have held its ownin anyschool m a t c h. Winchester had again a fair eleven , though not as good as in 1889. In onew a ythey were very successful , as out of 13 matches they only lost 1, winning 3 and drawing 9 with not more than 2 in the enemy's favour. B u tthey would not have played as good a gameat a pinch as some preceding Winchester teams , and their fielding was a most unusual thing with this school - o frather a commonquality . Great things were expected fromBoger's bowl- ing, but he scarcely improved on his previous form. Indeed, though he was as straight as ever, he seemed to have lost some of his spin , and bowled shorter . So it was fortunate for the side that Wigramdid so well with the ball : he got 41wickets for 14 runs apiece , and stood 4 points higher in the bowling averages than his better -knowncolleague . The batting was good; there were no single- figure averages , which shows that any one in the team could get runs on occasions . Theyoung Leveson Goweraveraged 38, and he is a most promis- ing cricketer , who should certainly be heard of again . His elder brother , Rich- mond, andBoger, are all useful men; but none of them are quite up to Univer- sity form, unless Boger's bowling improves again . Perhaps their best perform- ance was against United Services , whenthe boys got 173 and their opponents 42 for 7wickets . Against Eton they had very much the best of a drawn game, andthey were again decidedly stronger than the Etonians . TheScotch schools , whohave sent up manygood cricketers in recent years: to the English Universities , make some attempt at settling the question of the undivided supremacy of one particular eleven by a series of matches among themselves . W ehave no sympathy , theoretically , with cricket championships , and hope the day of an inter -school cricket challenge cup is very far distant ; butinScotland the interest is pretty well spread through the cricket season . Thetitle of " Champion" carries with it, w ebelieve , nothing but honour, and onthe whole the system works well . The question last season was whether Blair Lodge or Fettes were the champions , for the conflict betweenthese twohad to be left unfinished , owing to rain. Discussion ensued on the point , andwe: believe that public opinion decided that Blair Lodge was the champion Scotch school. Southof the border the question has not much general interest ; for the English cricketing public care less what school was champion than whatschool has in its eleven players who are likely to become first -class cricketers , especially if these lights are coming to England to finish their cricket education there .