Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

two-day contest on Wednesday and Thursday, 10 and 11 July. This was squeezed in between a match which the Australians had agreed to play against the Orleans Club at Twickenham in West London on Monday and Tuesday, 8 and 9 July, and an odds match against an Oldham XVIII in Lancashire on Friday and Saturday, 12 and 13 July. Naturally, J.T.D.Llewelyn, as the figurehead of Welsh cricket and the man who had helped secure the fixture in the first place, agreed to lead the Welsh side, with Lewis as his trusty second-in-command. As a director of various railway companies, J.T.D. also persuaded a number of companies to run additional trains with reduced fares, allowing people from across the region to travel to St. Helen’s to watch the tourists. His actions though may not have been entirely benevolent, because as a shrewd businessman, he realised the need for a decent crowd in order to meet the not inconsiderable sum of money guaranteed to Lillywhite in arranging the game, now reduced to just two days and without having the luxury of any gate money on a third day. The task of sorting out the rest of the team largely fell to C.P.Lewis who, in keeping with the club’s policy of representing each part of the region, sent invitations to a group of players drawn from across the area. To his delight, he received acceptances from the cream of the region’s amateur talent, including Frank Cobden, the Cambridge Blue from the Radnorshire club. T.B.Jones agreed to turn out, as did two other mainstays of the Breconshire county side – Gerald Wontner, from the thriving Brecon Town and Garrison club, who had played provincial cricket in New Zealand, and Teddy Davies, a stalwart of the Brecon and Crickhowell clubs who was one of the finest wicket-keeper batsmen in South Wales at that time. The Swansea club were represented by Charles Chambers, a forthright batsman who later became President of the town’s Rugby Club and the first President of the Welsh Rugby Union, together with Lewis Jenkins, a solid batsman who eleven years later had the honour of opening the batting for Glamorgan C.C.C. in their inaugural county match. The Carmarthenshire area was represented by G.B. (‘Jerry’) Elkington, a forcing top-order batsman from Burry Port and an electric fielder, whilst Monmouthshire’s representative was Henry Ivins, a left handed hitter and slow bowler. Another who agreed to appear was Edward Ord, a dependable batsman who played for the Cadoxton club from Neath, along with teenager Robert Knight, an outstanding schoolboy batsman from Clifton College, Bristol and 48 Schoolmaster at Llandovery College