Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

For Lewis, the next few years were a time for a fresh challenge, but for the hierarchy of the South Wales C.C, it was business as usual. At their 1882 annual general meeting, at the Mackworth Hotel in Swansea, Lewis was re-appointed vice-captain, as discussions took place about the fixtures for the forthcoming season. Attempts had been made to secure a fixture with that year’s Australian tourists, but these failed and the bulk of the meeting was taken up with the necessary arrangements for the annual tour to London. By now, the tour comprised visits to Lord’s and The Oval, plus a match at Bristol to play Clifton on the way back to Wales. The 1882 tour, led once again by Lewis, resulted in a couple of heavy defeats. At Lord’s, South Wales were dismissed for 88, before M.C.C., represented by a side comprised entirely of players who had played in first-class cricket, replied with 236. Their top scorer, with 113, was the Irishman T.C.O’Brien, later a baronet, who had appeared for Middlesex and two years later played for England against Australia. O’Brien was one of Lewis’ victims as he returned figures of six for 90. South Wales were bowled out for a further 160, with opening bat Henry Davies from Pembrokeshire top-scoring with 85 22 and duly lost by ten wickets. At The Oval, Surrey were less formidably represented by their Club and Ground A Gentleman of South Wales 68 The Swansea ground, St. Helen’s, probably in 1914, with the groundsman cutting the outfield grass with a horse-drawn mowing machine. Lewis played many matches here. 22 He later played first-class cricket, very briefly, for Hampshire. Another member of the South Wales side was A.E.Green-Price, from Radnorshire, aged 22. Green-Price, later a cleric, eventually played his first-ever first-class match for H.K.Foster’s XI v Worcestershire, at New Road, in 1919, by which time he was nearly sixty, the oldest first-class debutant in cricket in Britain.