Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

35 having batted first were easily defeated by seven wickets. Mitchell himself had an unsuccessful game as a batsman. His scores as an opener were nought and eight. The team then travelled by the Lehigh Valley Railway to the following game against Canada at Toronto. Mitchell made 19 and ten in a drawn match which his team would have won but for rain curtailing play. There he would have met the old muscular Christian, the Reverend Francis Terry who had played for Somerset ten years earlier. In mid-September, having first visited Niagara Falls, the team arrived in Philadelphia and in a three day game were firmly defeated by the University of Pennsylvania Past and Present by 100 runs. Mitchell now played well for 58 and his team dominated for the first half of the game. But then the university, having followed on batted well, and the Englishmen collapsed in their second innings, all out for 61, (Mitchell 1) and the game was lost. Mitchell was to write 40 years later: Here the stupid old follow-on rule beat us, for we knew the wicket was going to be broken for the fourth innings, but there was no option and they followed on. Had the alteration which was made as a result of my action in the ‘Varsity match of 1896, been then in vogue I should have batted again after we got them out. Our bowlers were a little under the weather, having to work a double shift, for we all found Wissahickon to be a very hot place. Did Mitchell have this game at the back of his mind when, less than a year later, he avoided having to require Oxford to follow on by unusual tactics? The next game against the Gentlemen of Philadelphia, at the Manheim ground of Germantown, was a keen struggle and Mitchell’s team prevailed by two wickets. The Gentlemen batted first and Patterson who had a wonderful game batted through the innings for 109 not out. The English side were well behind on first innings but recovered well with Lowe bowling out six Philadelphians for 15 runs. The 220 runs required to win were secured with a degree of scrambling play. The last match was a disappointment for the English. They succumbed at Merion’s Haverford ground by an innings and 39 runs. For the home side Bohlen scored 115 and Patterson 74 in a record double hundred stand for the first wicket. Mitchell failed again (18 and five), possibly trying to do too much as captain and wicket-keeper, and his average for the five games (both first-class and non-first-class) was: 10 innings, 134 runs, highest score 58, average 13.4. The American Cricketer wrote of these matches in a style that English readers might find unusual. For example, ‘ Mitchell singled from his first ball ’, ‘ a quartette from Hill ’, Hill ‘ punted ’ a ball to leg, and ‘ Hill again scored a triple ’. Before leaving New York on the US Mail Steamer New York , Mitchell wrote a letter of thanks to John Mann, one of the Philadelphian organisers: ‘ We have all learnt something from seeing your men play on fiery wickets. It was a revelation to see how your men mastered the bumping ball so well.’ Cambridge, Yorkshire interlude and America, 1895