James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annaul 1897

K U M A RS H R IR A N J I T S I N H J I . U p to 1894 W . G. Grace's aggregate of 2,739 runs in 1871 was the best record for first -class matches in a season . And what English cricketers have failed to equal has been accomplished by quite a young player , born and educated , at least as far as the School part of his education is concerned , in a far distant part of the Empire. That it should have been outdone , too, by anyone in practically his second year of cricket , is the more remarkable . Still , this is a fact . A son of the J a m of Navanagar, K. S. Ranjitsinhji was born in India on September 10th , 1872. Educated at the Rajkumar College at Kathiawar , in India , the foundation of his cricket was laid by an Englishman , a master there , Coming to England in 1892 , after a six months' stay he went up to Cambridge University . His first appearance was as a substitute in a Trinity matchthat summer. Nextseason sawhim in the Cambridge Eleven . Commencing to qualify in 1893 , he made his first appearance for Sussex in 1895. H e headed the Sussex averages at the end of the year with over forty -one for thirty -three completed innings , but this he far out-stripped last summer. In first -class matches altogether he scored 2,780 runs , which beats W. G.'s highest aggregate (in 1895) by 34. Inten innings he madea hundred, whichequals W . G.'s record , which was also in 1879. In the Yorkshire match at Brighton he got a hundred each time, achieving a feat previously recorded to W .G. Grace, A. E. Stoddart , G. Brannand Storer only .