Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

79 drawn and regrettably must have been a game of some tedium. For MCC Shaw and Morley bowled a total of 236 four-ball overs with 143 maidens for a total of 222 runs and 18 wickets. This was not really festival cricket. In no other season did Carter play as many as these five first- class matches. He scored just 57 runs and yet he still managed to finish seventh in the Yorkshire batting averages out of 20 players listed. His average largely because of one innings of 39 not out was shown in Wisden as ‘14-1’ meaning 14 in the first innings of a match and one in the second innings. This was the only season when he appeared in the listed averages for Yorkshire. 11: Gentlemen of the North versus Gentlemen of the South, Scarborough, September 1879 A team known as the Gentlemen of the North had been playing occasional matches, nearly always against the Gentlemen of the South, since a non-first-class fixture against those Southern Gentlemen at the Racecourse Ground Promenade, Northampton in 1844. First-class fixtures were to be played at established and well-known grounds but also at lesser venues, as at Broughton Cricket Club, Salford; Wavertree Road, Liverpool; the Cattle Market Ground in Islington; Meadow Road, Beeston; and Lillie Bridge, West Brompton. This team had not played in Yorkshire until they took on the Players of the North at Fartown, Huddersfield in 1877. Finally they came to Scarborough for what was to be a final match against the Gentlemen of the South in early September 1879 and as a prelude to two other Festival matches. Edmund Carter played for the Northern Gentlemen and other Yorkshire county players who took part were T.S. Dury, Teddy Roper, Gerald Leatham and the Reverend Hugh Wood. Perhaps it can be now stated with a touch of confidence that Carter had a say in the selection of this side and probably once again Lord Londesborough was a sponsor. The match was competitive, with the Southern side scoring 231, and their northern counterparts then 243, with Carter 17 not out. In their second innings the Southerners were out for 146 and the Gentlemen of the North First-class matches