Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

Chapter Two Oxford and a Lost Cause C.P. went ‘up’ to Oxford University in October 1872 at the age of 19. It wasn’t, however, until his fourth and final year in residence, in 1876, that he won a cricket Blue, as well as a half-Blue in athletics. Away from the lecture theatre and examination hall, his early years in residence seem to have been particularly devoted to sporting achievement for Jesus College, which at the time was one of the smaller colleges with just 60 undergraduates – significantly fewer than the 240 at Christ Church, 182 at Balliol, 156 at Exeter and 130 at Keble. Whilst it was easier for good sportsmen like C.P. to represent the smaller colleges, on the other hand the smaller colleges had less influence within Oxford’s sporting hierarchy. This, and the fact that C.P. had attended relatively minor public schools, and hailed from a generally unfashionable cricketing locality, probably contributed to his failure to be selected for the freshmen’s cricket trials in April 1873. 5 As a result, he languished instead in inter-college sport until his final year in residence. His first appearance in the Jesus XI came on 23 April 1873, with C.P. batting at five in their line-up against Wadham College, and opening the bowling alongside Thomas Babington Jones, an outstanding schoolboy sportsman from Christ College, Brecon who, like his good friend C.P., was later a leading player in South Wales rugby. In 1873 Jones was on the fringe of the Oxford side, before winning a cricket Blue the following year, and for much of 1873 his medium-pace bowling alongside Lewis helped Jesus College secure a number of good victories in inter-college matches, as in the match against Wadham, when the latter were bundled out for just 34, with C.P. claiming four cheap wickets. 23 5 When C.P. finally received his Oxford Blue in 1876, by which time 440 had been awarded, he was only the fourth Welsh-born player to win one. His predecessors were his namesake W.H.Lewis, born in Pembrokeshire, who won a Blue in the first Varsity match in 1827; Morgan Jones, an Old Harrovian, born at Penylan, Cardiganshire who won Blues in 1849 and 1850; and C.P.’s close friend, Thomas Babington Jones, born at Maesteg, Glamorgan, who had received his Blue in 1874.