Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

Australians at the same venue in 1890. 7 The next match, also at Cowley, was against a Gentlemen of England team raised by the Middlesex big-hitter C.I. ‘Buns’ Thornton. It was played in dull weather, described by Wisden as ‘anti-cricketing’ with the students put in to bat first. Lewis was set to open the bowling again, but still had surprises in store for his new colleagues. After his batting failures against M.C.C., C.P. was demoted to eleven in the batting order, where he scored a crisp 33 and added 68 with Old Etonian Francis Buckland, the highest tenth-wicket partnership in any of the 73 first-class matches in the season. Both were not out after adding 33 at the end of the first day, and the following morning, they scored a further 35 as their stand proved to be frustrating for the bowlers. Lewis and Buckland then added to the Gentlemen’s woes as they bowled them out and secured the follow-on, as the students cruised to a ten-wicket win. In all, Lewis bowled 82 overs for his four wickets, whilst the accurate medium-pacer Buckland delivered 103, with the rest of the side sharing just 39 overs between them. C.P.’s fourth and last victim was Donny Walker of Southgate, Middlesex – the original organiser of the 1878/79 tour of Australia – and this match may have sown the seeds of his ‘invitation’ to that tour. Oxford’s next first-class game was against Middlesex, who at that time played their home matches at the Prince’s ground in Chelsea. (They did not move to Lord’s until 1877.) The game is given a special heading ‘Immense Scoring’ in Wisden , as the three-day contest saw an aggregate of 1,217 runs being made for the loss of only 24 wickets. 8 The high scoring can be attributed to a featherbed pitch, a small playing area and what The Times called ‘abundant evidence that bowling and fielding … were beneath the standard of reputation’. Lewis bowled 44 overs in the first innings but didn’t get a wicket as Middlesex ran up 439, ending the first day on 394 for eight. Donny Walker scored 110 before he was caught in the deep off his first false stroke. Oxford replied with 612, the highest total then achieved in first-class cricket. All eleven batsmen reached double figures and their captain William Game – who later played for a dozen years as the backbone of the Surrey 26 Oxford and a Lost Cause 7 A modern-day debut return by a University player even of five wickets in an innings would be a minor sensation. The last player to achieve it for Oxford was J.G.Saunders who took five for 50 and then five for 52 against Lancashire in 1966. 8 At 50.70 runs per wicket, compared with season’s average for all first-class matches of 17.49.