James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Companion 1884

47 of its batting; the brunt of tho battle and the chief honours in this respect being pretty equally divided between the Captain, B lenkiron , C. H. V intcent , and B rows . One further fact calls for notice. The eleven in lb82 weie decidedly weak, and had to iield out against long scores, but for all that their fielding was worthy of all praise; last year the fielding was, "with one or two exceptions, far from what one expects to see in a Public School team. The comparison brings but little credit on this head to the Eleven of last season. E ugbv were better than in 1882, hut were still far from being a high- class team. The batting, which was fair at times, but never thoroughly to l^e relied ou, was their strongest point, and their best performers in this line were C oles , W aison , W igan , C astens , and H arrison . The first-named possessed good style, and both he and W atson played a steady, patient game; C astens , their captain, was a powerful hitter when well set, W igan a strong player who often made runs, and H arris on a frequent but not a certain scorer. Their chances of dis­ tinction were heavily handicapped by the entire absence of bowling, fast or slow, worthy of any notice. The chief feature of their play before the public was the pluck with which, in both their matches at Lord’s, when seemingly on the eve of defeat, they came again and displayed very creditable batting form. The fielding of the team was good, and next season, i f they can bring some bowling to their rescue, we shall expect to see them more on a looting with some of the H ugby teams uf yore. The W estminster team were but a moderate lot, and compare un­ favourably with the eleven of 1882. They began the season pretty well, but later on, from some cause or another, met with scarcely any success. Their captain, H iggins , who scored so highly in 1882, was one of the redeeming features of the team, and we shall expect to see him make a goad show amongst the other Oxford freshmen next summer; besides being a line bat, lie bowls, medium overhand, at times with success. Of the rest, H urst , B edford , and T ritton were the most regular scorers, and the last-named showed on more than one occasion good bowling form; but, as we have said, the team was, with the exception of H iggins , below par. : T onbridge , which has been pushing its way to the front during the last year or so, succeeded in establishing for itself last year a strong reputation as a batting team. They made throughout the season a succession of long-scores, and had their bowling—which was weak—and their fielding—which was bad—been up to the standard of their hatting, their successes would have been even more pronounced than they were. As it was they scarcely ever failed to make a good stand at the wickets against their several opponents, hut , p e r con tra , on meeting a good team, they seemed powerless to get rid of them under a large score. Ot the nine matches which they played, they lost two only, and some of their performances were quite of a sensational character, Within the space of a week, for instance, they compiled the huge totals of 441 (lor 9 wickets, and 447) against Brighton College and the Marlborough Blues respectively. In recording these achievements, the fact must not be lost sight of that a school which attains more or less suddenly to a position much above its average does not as a rule meet in the field such strong teams as one which has always held a name for consistent excellence.