James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1898

C R I C K E TIN 1 8 9 7. 4 5 double success over Lancashire and Essex fairly justified the belief that the first place was well assured for them. As it happened Tauntononce more sounded the knell of their hopes. The uncertainty of cricket was never perhaps more forcibly exemplified than in the fact that Somersetshire was able to beat Surrey twice last year . In the return match Surrey were unfortunate in losing Hayward, owing to an injury , when he had already bowledwith great success , and in addition luck was no doubt a little against them. All the same the greatest credit wasdue to the Somersetshire Eleven for the plucky cricket they showed . Their double victory over Surrey was a great performance , and one calculated to console them for other short- comings . But this is something of a digression . The effect of Surrey's defeat at Taunton was to give the premiership to Lancashire , leaving second. place to Surrey , with Essex and Yorkshire next in order . As it was, Surrey indeed were just a bit lucky to finish above Essex . Adefeat by Sussex in their last fixture would have relegated them to the third position . Fortu- nately for them, considering that on paper they had all the worst of the play as far as it went at Brighton , rain prevented any play on the third day, so that the gamecould not be completed. Still , on the whole , perhaps , public form was pretty well vindicated in the ultimate distribution of the principal honours . The Lancashire Eleven showed such consistently good form on all kinds and conditions of wickets that the most fastidious critic could hardly take serious exception to their recognition as the best team of the year. Their success was the more credit-- able from the fact that Mold was unable to help them in several of their most imporant matches . That he was not more missed spoke highly for the general excellence of the bowling throughout the season . In Mold's absence it was mostly of the same pace of course . Still , Briggs , Cuttell , and Hallam presented a good deal of variety , and in any case success attended one andall of them, so muchso as to place the three in quite the forefront of the averages at the end of the year. Lancashire's out -cricket had a good deal to do with the brilliant record they obtained . If any fault were to be found withtheir play it would have to be in their batting . Thetail hardly gave one the impression of being quite up to the standard of some previous years , although more than once it showed up very creditably , and at a crisis . O n the other hand there were so manybatsmen, all of them likely to be dangerous , that even as run - getters the eleven were bound to be dangerous at all times , and , moreover , on any wicket . In Mr. MacLaren, Albert Ward, Frank Sugg, Baker, and Tyldesley , at any rate , they had five batsmen , any of whom might change the whole aspect of a match. After all , too , the fact remains that , tail or no tail , Lancashire was a difficult side to get out, and at all events lack of pluck could certainly not beurged against them. On public form it would be difficult to point to any other County team as of quite the same all -round excellence , so that theyw o nthe Championship fairly on their merits . Asthey were playing during the latter part of the season Surrey were a strong combination , and would have taken their ownpart with the best underanyconditions . This is something to say for them, as of late years they have rather borne the character of a side only seen to advantage on good wickets . Not that they had in 1897 many opportunities of show- ing their capacity under disadvantages . Still , all round there was a noticeable increase of life in the cricket . In batting , of course , where the conditions