James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual 1899

C R I C K E TIN 1898. 7 T h esuccesses of the Gloucestershire Eleven were a source of general congratulation . It was quite pleasant , indeed , to see the side playing up again with a keenness suggestive of the halcyon days of the County, when W .G. was at his best , and besides E. M. and Fredthere were such cricketers as Frank Townsend, T. G. Matthews, R. F. Miles , and J. A. Bush to help him. Later in the season , whenthe full team were got together , Gloucester- shire had undoubtedly a strong all -round side . Whether it was sufficiently goon to merit their attainment of the thidplace in County cricket is another matter . Of batting it had no lack with W. G , Townsend, Jessop , Sewell , Champain, Troup, all of them first - class batsmen , to be reinforced sub- sequently by a stone -waller li'e R. W. Rice . One of the chief causes of the improved record of Gloucestershire was the fact that the majority of the eleven were young. There was a general life about the side which was lacking some few years ago, and that they were essentially a team of triers will be admitted. Fortunately for themC. L. Townsendwasseen at his very best . Thefears that hehad entirely lost the accuracy of pitch which marked his débût when quite a boy were happily not verified in last season's results . O ngood as well as bad wickets , indeed , he came off well. A s a batsman, too, hewasquite in the front , having acquired some powers of hitting in addition to excellence of defence. W . G. at times bowledwith his old success , and was, it goes without saying , always of use . Jessop did not prove as deadly as in the previous year , but, with W. S. A. Brown consider- ably improved, the Eleven were able to dispense with Roberts in the later matches , a proof , at all events , that W. G. was fairly satisfied with the bowling at his disposal . Still , it was to the strength of the batting that the successes of the Gloucestershire Eleven were mainly due. That they only lost three matchesw a sof itself sufficient to s h o wthat their all-roundcricket was distinctly above the average . It maybe that they were just a bit lucky in escaping defeat in some of the unfinished games . Still , according to the system of compilation in force for the County Championship, they were undoubtedly third , and a g o dthird too . A tthec o m m e n c e m e n t of h e seasonh ew o u l dh a v eb e e na b o l dm a n who would have ventured to suggest Surrey as a likely competitor for the County Championship. Nor did their early performances warrant such a suggestion . WithRichardson in far from his best form, after his Australian trip , it certainly looked as if the side would have anything but a good time of it. Yet there was a time towards the end of the season when Surrey undoubtedly might have been regarded as possible rivals to Yorkshire for the premiership . As it happened , they found their Waterloo , as they had more than once before , in the West. Still ,it was not Somerset- shire that interfered to upset their calculations , or, at all events , ruined their hopes . It was, this time , Gloucestershire that settled them, when, too , they were well in the running . History repeated itself to some extent , asthey lost Lockwood's bowling, as they hadHayward'sat Tauntonthe year before , just whenhe mighthave madeall the difference in the result . None the less , Surrey had a good side , if not as good as that which represented it some five or six years ago. O nthe run-getting pitches at the Oval they were bound to make big scores . Only once during the season were they dismissed there for a total of under three hundred , and that , singularly enough , by Sussex, without its best bowler, Bland, and on a wicket all in favour of the bat, Surrey's record at homewas quite out of the common. There they did not know what defeat was ; only once , in the match against Sussex , just B 2