Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

First-class matches 80 approaching a victory at 100 for one when time ran out. Time also ran out for these fixtures and the two sides never played one another again. This match was not referred to at all in Wisden 1880, a somewhat esoteric decision considering that the early pages of reported fixtures in the Almanack that year were all of less important ‘Cricket On The Ice’ matches. 12: versus I Zingari at Scarborough, September 1879 13: versus MCC at Scarborough, September 1879 These two matches had now become established fixtures and following on from the Gentlemen of the North match created a Festival of nine consecutive days (excluding Sundays) of first- class cricket. With Carter choosing the Yorkshire teams, he picked the almost unknown amateur Martin Riley, a manufacturing chemist, for the I Zingari fixture and Riley responded with a flowing 92 in one of his few games for the county. Carter only contributed eight and might have thought he would have little else to do when IZ were all out for 127 in response to Yorkshire’s 296. But when IZ followed on they did rather better reaching 311 and Carter came on as the seventh Yorkshire bowler to take three for 23. The match was then drawn without Carter batting again. This match is not referred to in the Wisden reports for 1879 nor is it included in the Yorkshire averages published for that season but nonetheless has now long been regarded as having been a first- class fixture. The MCC match was ruined by rain with no time for MCC to complete a first innings having bowled out Yorkshire for 148 (Carter 12). The amateur Albert Motley played for Yorkshire in these two games, having taken a hat-trick seven times in that 1879 season, but was alleged to be an out and out thrower. He never played for Yorkshire again. Carter could have been captain of Yorkshire in these two games in the absence of the regular professionals who used to captain the side, though the other captaincy candidate was the amateur wicketkeeper Gerald Leatham. Still, as Carter would have helped to choose the side and had captained Yorkshire to a past win over