Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

with Lewis opening the batting with the Cardiff industrialist Sir Joseph Spearman, who had helped to underwrite some of the costs incurred in visiting North Wales. After their first game at Llanfairfechan, the South Wales club went across the English border to Shrewsbury, where they played Shropshire who had been playing county and county-style matches for many years, as well as annual games with M.C.C. since 1879. Then they returned to Llanfairfechan for another game – the same teams, but a different title this time branded as South Wales v North Wales. The matches were all drawn, with South Wales holding the advantage in all three. The circumstances of these were no doubt most agreeable, but none of these opponents 25 had anywhere near the firepower of the M.C.C., Surrey or Sussex sides which had figured in the South Wales Club’s previous tours: so there is a hint, perhaps, of a slipping ambition. Lewis’ own contributions to the matches were modest; thirteen runs in three innings and five wickets. Besides covering the costs of their visit to North Wales, Joseph Spearman was also the main backer for a ‘Cardiff Week’ at the Arms Park, comprising matches with M.C.C. and Platt’s North Wales XI. The South Wales club hoped that this week would boost interest in their activities. It also confirmed that the powerbase within the South Wales C.C. had shifted firmly towards the Cardiff club, whilst those individuals from the Swansea club, and further west – including Lewis – started to wield far less influence. Had he not been so busily involved with his legal training, perhaps Lewis would have strongly lobbied for a week, or at least a game, at St. Helen’s or Neath. But now it appears he was just happy to get an opportunity to turn out wherever he could with his old friends and acquaintances. In the M.C.C. match, Lewis scored nought and nine as M.C.C. won after bowling out South Wales for just 39 in their second innings. Frank Hearne of Kent, who played for England and South Africa in nineteenth-century Tests at the Cape, took five wickets in the innings. Lewis, though, did claim seven wickets in the match, including one from a return catch from Hearne. He then took three wickets in the following match, against North Wales, before A Gentleman of South Wales 72 25 None of the Bryn-y-Neuadd sides figured in first-class cricket: their best- known sportsman was Arthur Dunn, the amateur football international. Shropshire’s side included four players who had by then (or later) made appearances in first-class cricket. The best known of these was George Kemp, who played for Cambridge University from 1885 to 1888 and intermittently for Lancashire from 1885 to 1892. He was later an M.P. and member of the House of Lords.