Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

55 Chapter Eight Quiet summers, winter tours and Test cricket, 1897-99 1897 Frank Mitchell was allowed to return to Cambridge in the summer term of 1897 to finalise a BA degree with a disappointing Third in Classical Tripos. That also gave him a fourth season as a Cambridge player. He was not now the captain, that honour having fallen to N.F.Druce. Mitchell did not play during May but he was then able to join the Cambridge team and to participate in six first-class fixtures. He also played at Aigburth against Liverpool and District in a match which was again not regarded by MCC as being first-class, but was still listed in Wisden under the title ‘ Other Great Matches’. It may be that the MCC’s decision was still causing rancour. His scores were generally moderate and he would have been disappointed that in his last Varsity match he only managed six (run out) and one. In his four Varsity matches his scores were one and 28 (1894), 28 and 43 (1895), 26 and four (1896), and six and one (1897). He thus began as he had started with a mere single, and an average in those matches against Oxford University of fewer than 20 was, because of his initial promise, a poor return. Having not played for Yorkshire at all in 1896, Mitchell was given just one opportunity to appear for the county in 1897. Hitherto Yorkshire with a strong batting line up had no real need for his services. But he was chosen to play at Bramall Lane against Sussex in July when neither Lord Hawke nor Jackson was available. It is unlikely that Mitchell captained the team, for the amateur Frank Milligan was also playing and he had a reasonably regular position in the Yorkshire side that season. Mitchell would not have been pleased to have then been run out for 35, especially having waited a very long time to bat whilst J.T.Brown and John Tunnicliffe established a new world record by putting on 378 runs for the first wicket. Brown made 311 and the partnership record lasted for just one month before being beaten by Abel and Brockwell for Surrey v Hampshire. Jackson took back his position from Mitchell in Yorkshire’s next match. The county club, though disappointed in a general falling away of their own performance and finishing fourth in the Championship, seemed to have no desire to give Mitchell an extended run in the team. He, having been elected in 1897 a member of MCC, had to be content with three more first-class games, one being for MCC v Gentlemen of Philadelphia, in which he scored 133 (his first century at Lord’s) and 58. He also played two games in the Hastings Festival, one for the North against the South, and the other for the Gentlemen against the Players. He did score 84 for the Gentlemen, a