Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

Chapter Eleven County Cricket for Carmarthenshire There was, though, to be a further twist to C.P.’s cricket tale. When the South Wales Club broke up in 1888, it was with a recommendation that its leading lights go away and form individual county teams. Glamorgan were up and running almost immediately, and were soon followed by Monmouthshire. Questions were asked about forming a Carmarthenshire team, especially as there were many good cricketers in the county, with both Llandovery and Llanelli rated amongst the top rank of Welsh amateur clubs, with the likes of Swansea, Neath and Cardiff – a rating that can be seen mirrored in Welsh rugby clubs up until the dawn of professionalism in the 1990s. There is no doubt the top players wanted county cricket, and their wish became more strident when the Minor Counties Championship started up in 1895. Such was the respect in which C.P.Lewis was held that every suggestion for a Carmarthenshire side being formed was deferred to him – and nothing ever happened. When Llanelli, for instance, held their annual general meeting in 1889, the minutes record that ‘a discussion ensued as to county cricket and it was decided to ask Mr C.P.Lewis to take steps in the matter’. We can sympathise with the now middle-aged Lewis. He had his legal work – as a self-employed man he had to think of his practice and his clients expected him to give them priority, too – and his municipal duties as Mayor and later as a magistrate. Llandovery would of course have been much quieter than Llanelli, bustling with boom-town energy as tin and coal poured out of its port, making it one of the biggest industrial successes of the 1890s. The sporting ambitions were achieved by the town’s famous rugby team, the ‘Scarlet Runners’, who became a major part of the growing success of Welsh rugby. Many of the successful rugby players were good-class cricketers as well, with Frank Powell, a Llanelli centre and a decent middle-order bat joining Lewis when the old South Wales Club came back together, as we have seen, for a final swansong to play Glamorgan 100