Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

for 14. Three of the other wickets were taken by the Rev C.E.Chapman, 34 whose antics with the ball certainly caught the attention of a local journalist. The report suggests something of the ‘serious but enjoyable’ atmosphere of these games, all of course, ‘non-League’: I will describe the funny first. The fantastic bowling of C.E.Chapman was one of the funniest of the afternoon’s proceedings. I shall not quickly forget the initial hop, the long run and the strong delivery. But it didn’t end there. The genial reverend then comes racing up the pitch, looks in the batsman’s eyes with the fierceness of a warrior, and ends up pirouetting round the wickets and taking a long walk into the outfield. I hadn’t seen anything funnier on the cricket field for a long time and it caught on immensely. He roared his orders to the field and as the catches went wandering about his deep register could be heard giving instructions to the prospective catchees, ‘Mind the twist’ … ‘More to the left’ … ‘Allow for the bounce’. And then, when the catch didn’t come off, the same deep register exhausted itself in exclamations of disgust, ‘Stupid boy’ … ‘Silly fellow’ and ‘Come away from there.’ The Rev C.E.Chapman gave us good fun and did a great deal to enliven what otherwise would have been a very dull innings. The stand of C.P.Lewis and C.E.Chapman was one of the finest bits of batting in the match and I am sorry there were so few here to witness it. In 1895 both C.P.Lewis and Douglas Jones accepted an invitation to join a Swansea and District eighteen to play the United South of England Eleven – the professional side still kept alive by county players who fancied some extra cash. The United South were mainly Surrey players. Tom Hayward, the England and Surrey bat, bowled Lewis once and Jones twice. Llandovery’s rugby international Conway Rees and their professional Jenner also played. Lewis did not get any wickets. In June 1895, Lewis and Jones also took part in a two-day reunion match for the South Wales Cricket Club, in a side comprising many of C.P.’s generation of cricketers, against Glamorgan at St Helen’s. Jones scored 95 in the first innings and Lewis 50 in the second, but they were seen off by nine wickets, through a 156 from Harold Letcher and ten Sporting Solicitor 97 34 C.E.Chapman played five matches for Cambridge University in 1882 and 1883 without winning a Blue; he played two Minor Counties championship matches for Hertfordshire in 1895. Muscular Christianity, it will be noted, thrived yet.