James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Companion 1884

43 * Br C. G U E D O N . I T HE SALIENT FEATURE in the Public School Cricket of 18S3, asa whole, was the general strength in batting, and the general weakness in bowling—at least, so we should put i t ; but the fact must not be lost sight of that the past year was considerably drier than its immediate predecessors, and particularly favourable to long scores. The critical world is a great deal too apt to judge by results alone, to lavish praise upon success, however luckily won, and to blame defeat, however undeserved, and thus but seldom to recognise in long scores or good bowling analyses the finger of chance acting through a fine warm summer or its reverse. Albeit, after making every allowance for external causes, we are still convinced that the Public School bowling of the year was, as a whole, discouragingly feeble. Of good batting there was a plenty, and we are especially glad to be able to chronicle a vast improvement throughout in fielding; indeed, more than one school was almost perfect in this respect. W inchester has, in our opinion, sustained its position at the top of the tree, and deserves to rank again as the best school of the year; though, admit we must that they did not quite come up to the expecta­ tions we formed of them about a twelvemonth ago. Forecasting their merits at that time, we made up our mind that they were going to turn out a team of very exceptional merit, and that we should find them at the end of the year in a class by themselves some way ahead of all rivals. These expectations have not been entirely fulfilled; but for all that they have been exceedingly successful, and were, without doubt, several grades above the average of ordinary school teams. As in 1882, so again last season their excellence was of an all­ round character, and they could boast of good batting, bowling, and ficdding. Some of their performances were decidedly good—their complete victory, for instance, over E ton , on the latter’s own ground. The E ton Eleven, always uncertain performers this year, were, we are inclined to think, off colour on this occasion; but, on the other hand, N icuolls , W inchester ’ s best bowler, had been badly “ cut over” in their match against the M.C.C. the week before, and had not sufficiently recovered to show in his true form; and when all is said and done the record remains—a thoroughly decisive victory over a strong rival team. Their captain, C obb , has developed into a really fine bat, and an exceedingly smart wicket-keeper, and he should cut a good figure amongst the Oxford freshmen next season. Of the rest, I ngram , H ills , and H umphry were all good sound hats, R icketts somewhat uncertain, but a fast run-getter when once set, B udd a hard hitter who generally scored, and W atson a correct and scientific hat, who gave good promise for next year. The three last-named were, moreover, with W atney , the