James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Companion 1884

44 best specimens in a good fielding lot. Amongst bowlers, N icholls fairly sustained the strong reputation he made for himself in 1882, and proved o f the greatest assistance to the team. S wayne improved immensely, and rose from a plain straight bowler into being really difficult to play. Besides these, H umphry and H av iland were very fair changes. Taken altogether, the team, though having nothing phenomenal about it, possessed considerable all-round merit, and to this evenness o f merit, inspiring as it did confidence so conducive to success, we think their victories were chiefly due. Besides Conn, R icketts and I ngram have already gone up to Oxford, and rumour (not always, however, to be relied on) relates that N icholls and B udd w ill be in residence at the same University before next cricket season has opened. The great blot in the character of the E ton Eleven was its uncer­ tainty. Beginning the year w ith most promising performances against some really formidable opponents, the Etonians failed for the most part later on to fulfil their earlier pledges. The cause o f this is somewhat difficult to diagnose. I t may possibly have been overmuch play at the beginning of the season, and a resultant staleness later on, or—and this we fancy is the most probable solution— the want of confidence displayed by the individual members of the team. Certain it is that when the most reliable bats scored, the rest o f the eleven were, generally speaking, successful too. When, on the other hand, the head failed to make runs, the tail, as a rule, shared in their failure. Confidence—that is, confidence proper, not its counterfeit, swagger— is one of the most important factors in the character of a successful cricketer : its absence w i l l often prevent the most correct batsman from showing in his true colours, and its presence render a player of but ordinary calibre a very useful member o f a team. Swagger, which in a schoolboy is sometimes mistaken for confidence, is in most instances only a gloss assumed to cover a conscious nervousness; and, when it fails in its object, as it does ninety-nine times out o f a hundred, it only serves to make its victim doubly ridiculous. The Eton Eleven of 1883 can certainly boast of having contained in M archant the most brilliant Public School bat of the last few years. This player and G tieatouex , of H arrow , far excelled all other boy-batsmen of the season; and, though we have heard diametrically opposed opinions as to their relative merits, we have no hesitation in our own mind in considering the E tonian as the champion o f the year. Besides M archant , L ucas (the captain) and A. H. S tudd were quite the mainstays o f the team in batting. The former, who was not very successful in 1882, quite regained his form last season, and not unfrequently made scores. That he is still at Eton, and w ill captain the eleven again next year, must prove some source o f satisfaction to the partisans of the L igh t Blue. S tudd was not only a con­ sistent scorer, but a thoroughly sound bat, straight, patient, and full of the game. He w i l l doubtless develop hereafter— though, unfortunately, vre believe, at neither Un iversity— into a worthy upholder of a name already so famous in the cricket world. Of the rest, P emberton , H argreaves , and H ugfssen were the most like ly to make runs, while T homas , though but a youngster, gave every promise of becoming a good bat. lu bowling, the School was, like most others, weak. R ichards was the only bowler to be at all relied on. P arker was most successful at Lord’s, but more through luck than anything else, and he never touched this