Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

29 28 for North against South, and for the first time joined W.G.Grace in the same team as the Gentlemen drew with the Players. Whilst W.G. scored 131, Mitchell may still have drawn attentive eyes with his two innings of 40 and 28. When it came to the final averages for the season Mitchell found that 45 players were ahead of him. 678 runs at 21.87 would have disappointed him after his excellent start, but he will have noted that even W.G. averaged below 30, and Bill Brockwell who headed the list was, at 38.9, still under 40 runs per innings. It was all summed up by the writer on Cambridge cricket in Wisden : The high hopes entertained of him were far from being realised. It is not easy to account for his sudden falling off. He may not at any time have been so fine a batsman as his earlier performances indicated ...He failed dismally when tried for Yorkshire, but at Hastings he showed some return to the form which for a few weeks made him the talk of the cricket world. His style of play did not impress us very favourably but we cannot believe that he made so many runs as he did without possessing first rate ability. The young player returned in the autumn of 1894 to his studies, perhaps a little chastened, but now rugby and a degree of stardom in that game settled upon him as he attained international status. Cricket was set aside for another seven months. Cambridge: the freshman’s year, 1893/94