Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

wickets. Lewis batted at second wicket down, scoring 0 and 33, and took two for 22 in the first innings. By the 1886 annual general meeting, held at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff, most of the cricket clubs in the region seemed to have come round to Lewis’ point of view that the Challenge Cup served little purpose. The leading clubs had gradually abandoned it after years of acrimonious contest, bad behaviour from players and crowds, and in its closing years, the competition was dominated by newer and junior clubs seeking prestige. It was therefore decided not only to discontinue the competition, but the club as well, with South Wales’ leading cricketers expected to go off and form individual county clubs. As with so many club cricket leaders, Lewis would have done a lot of the work himself, and as a mark of thanks, it was also resolved to present the now-defunct cup to Lewis ‘as a token of esteem and in recognition of the services rendered by him to South Wales cricket.’ It was perhaps the grandest-ever leaving gift presented to a cricket official in Wales. These decisions at the 1886 meeting also symbolised a seismic shift in the thinking of the hierarchy of the South Wales C.C., now led by J.P.Jones and supported by a series of influential figures in south-east Wales – hence the decision to hold the meeting in Cardiff rather than in Swansea. The mantra of the new committee was to create county teams representing Wales, and with the English County Championship having flourished in the 1880s, there was clearly a mood to create similar teams representing the counties of South Wales. At this stage it was by no means inevitable that Glamorgan would come to be Wales’ only first-class representative, though with hindsight we can see they had a majority of the ‘premier’ clubs. J.P.Jones also represented the dynamism and energy of the emerging middle-classes of urban Wales, whereas Lewis and other senior members of the club represented the squirearchy and the gentry who had first formed the South Wales club back in 1859. The mood for change was also assisted by nationalistic feelings which had swept, like a tidal wave, across the teeming industrial centres of the region during the 1880s. It was in these years that the National Eisteddfod Society become inaugurated to co-ordinate the cultural and artistic affairs, as well as a University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire. 1881 had seen the creation of the Welsh Rugby Union, and now five years or so later, 90 South Wales Cricket Club: A Dream Dies