Cricket team

“ There are no first-class keepers nowadays who put out their hands on the leg side and draw the ball to the stumps; they all jump to the leg side in front of the ball to prevent it resulting in a four-bye, and consequently, even if lucky enough to take the ball with their hands, they are so far from the stumps as to make it exceedingly difficult to knock the bails off.
A captain of a University team has not so much to do with training and coaching his team as a school captain. ”

“ The visit of the team undoubtedly did good, and cricket may be expected to go ahead rapidly in the next few years. More professional coaches from England or Australia are wanted, and greater efforts should be made to induce the Australians to send over teams. Lack of funds has in the past militated against the spread of cricket; but the New Zealand Cricket Council, who engineered the tour, and nearly all the local centres, made money out of the gate receipts, and as a keen enthusiasm has been aroused, improvement in the future should be rapid. ”

“ Division must be exhaustive; all the members of the genus must find a place in one or other of the species; a captain who selects for his team skilful batsmen and bowlers only is guilty of an incomplete division of the whole function of a cricket team by omitting to provide himself with good fielders. ”

“ Little thought we then that 17 years later Australia should have progressed sufficiently to be able to send a team to us which should hold its own against the strongest of our clubs!
On the 18th and 19th July, 1861, my brothers, Henry and E. M., made their first appearance at Lord's, playing for the South Wales Club v. M.C.C. Both gave a fine display of cricket, Henry scoring 63 not out, first innings; E. M., run out 14 first, and 41 not out, second. E. M. was still more successful with the ball, capturing eight wickets first innings (six of them clean bowled) , and seven second. ”

“ But the thing has been too much laboured, and we in England are now weary of these continued invasions, not because the Australian players are unpopular with us at home, but because we want some rest and time to turn our attention to domestic cricket affairs. After the present season an Australian team will not be really welcomed by our English players, till the Spofforths, Palmers, Graces, and Shrewsburys are no longer on the war-path, and a new generation of cricketers has arisen to engage in the friendly rivalry of the Lion and Kangaroo. ”

“ The air was full of rumours about the sixth Australian team which landed in England in 1888.
I have noticed that a really good bowler appears in the ranks of the professionals about once in half-a-dozen years, and amongst the amateurs about once in twelve. Australian cricketers have shown that the remark does not apply to them; for in the six teams which have visited us from 1878 down to 1888, at least half-a-dozen amateurs may be classed as great bowlers. ”

“ He hailed us, and we asked him if his people would accept our terms.
“Yes, massa, we all put fings on, but we much sooner play cricket widdout.”
“Nonsense,” shouted back the Model Man. “Cricket is a civilised game, and must be followed in a civilised way, or not at all. We will be on the ground at ten o’clock.”
The messenger rowed off, and a great discussion began as to the constitution of our team. Everybody wanted to go to the match, and sit in the shade and look on and criticise, but no one much cared about playing. The Captain of the “Rhine” absolutely refused, to begin with. ”

“ The four best available bowlers must be played without regard to their batting powers, and after these four have been selected let the team be filled up with good batsmen and fielders, quite irrespective of whether they can bowl or not. It is an excellent thing for a side that every man should be able to bowl a bit if wanted, and every boy should be able to do so, but it is only necessary in choosing the team to play four men as bowlers only. ”

“ Those, too only who have known some celebrated cricketer from childhood, and have watched his career and promotion from the little boys' to the big boys' eleven, and eventually to the parish eleven, and have seen his cricket talent developed from year to year until he appears in his county team, can imagine how painful is the excitement to those who are interested in his success. ”

“ Matches, as a rule, have gone to the team which backed up a destructive attack with competent fielding, and there seems no reason why in this respect history should not repeat itself. We may be permitted to conclude with an expression of the sincere hope that University cricket may maintain its high position, and that the big match will remain something in which all the Empire shall continue to take legitimate pride and interest, because it is the contest between the best of England’s youth fought in true sporting fashion. ”

“ Our system of training the young idea in cricket is very much inferior to the training for footer. The consequence is that in Dulwich cricket a young team is probably destined for disaster, whereas I know from experience that whenever we've had a young footer team it has had quite as much success as teams exclusively composed of fellows in their last year at school. ”

“ His side was beaten by a few runs, and without his having received one single ball. An order made out before the innings begins is more likely to be correct than one hashed and cut about amidst excitement and anxiety. Never should a captain change his order in the second innings; of course a man who is in particularly good form may be given a hoist up a place or so, but the bad bats of the team should not be sent in first so long as there is the remotest possibility of losing; and at cricket this contingency is nearly always on the cards. ”

“ The Gentlemen and Players match practically has been played ever since cricket began, the first match having been played in 1806. There have been variations in odds, owing to the greater strength of the Players, but this will never occur again, and the struggle has for years been worthy of the name. In old times, and, indeed, till recently, a certain style was characteristic of each team: the amateurs batted in more attractive if less safe style than the professionals. ”

“ Players, or represented England against Australia! No wonder the boy becomes imbued with keenness for the game, when everyone in the village, from, the parson to the old lady who keeps the sweetshop, is continually talking about cricket. As the boy grows older he begins to make his mark in the village club, and when he is eighteen or nineteen, to the delight of his father, mother, sisters, and himself, he is selected to make one of the twenty-two colts of his county that are chosen to play against the county team. ”

“ Since 1876, when in Australia a picked Australian eleven for the first time defeated an English team on level terms, the interest of all who follow the game has been fastened on Australia and its cricket methods. The Americans play, and fairly well; the South Africans the same, though they are for the most part English-born, who have learnt their cricket in England; there is cricket in the West Indies, India, and New Zealand ”

“ Unfortunately we hear that at the present time cricket in the big towns of Australia is not so popular as it was a few years back, and that the best matches do not attract more than a sprinkling of spectators. This is greatly to be regretted. A sudden change must certainly have come over the Australian cricket-loving public of six or seven years ago. In 1882, when the writer was out with the Hon. Ivo Bligh's team, the beautiful grounds of Sydney and Melbourne were simply crammed at every match. The excitement over the representative matches was intense ”

“ Over 200 runs in an innings was scored by ten amateurs, and the century was scored about 350 times.
Before the first Australian eleven had completed its tour in England it was decided that a fifth eleven of English players should go out to Australia. On this occasion it was an invitation from the Melbourne Cricket Club to the amateurs of England; but a team made up of amateurs entirely was found impracticable, and two most popular professionals, Emmett and Ulyett—both belonging to Yorkshire,—had to be included. ”

“ A 'Varsity team has about six weeks' hard work, and no man can bear the strain of this if, at the same time, he is keeping late hours and distributing his attentions impartially amongst all the numerous delicacies that adorn the University dinner-tables during the May term. No strict training is required, thank goodness! Cricket does not demand of her votaries the hollow face and attenuated frame, and too often the undermined constitution, that a long term of arduous training occasionally results in, especially to a youth of unmatured strength ”

“ Early Players.—If the era of the present form of cricket can very properly be dated from the visit of the first Australian team to England in 1878, some enumeration must be made of a few of the cricketers who took part in first-class matches in the earlier portion of the 19th century. ”

“ But it is not too much to say that a careful attention to these points would ultimately turn eleven indifferent cricket players into a good fielding team.
In a work necessarily somewhat didactic as this is, it may be advisable to remind youngsters that the finger of scorn is pointed even more to the very bad field than it is to the very bad batsman or bowler. A very bad bowler will not be asked to bowl unless the bowling is hit into a thoroughly entangled knot—as was the case in an Australian v. ”

“ Mr. Edward Lyttelton's team, 316; the teams in 1881, 319; treatment by the great Australian team of 1882, 320; Cambridge Past and Present v. Australia, 321; the 'Varsity match in 1883, 322; comparative falling oft of the Universities, 322; the Cambridge victory of 1885, 323; "the last choice game," 324; the difficulty of getting a "blue," 327; Cambridge v. Sussex, 327; incidents leading to an alteration in the law of following on, 327; new players, 329; the 'Varsity match of 1896, 332; ebb years between 1896-1902, 335; a gorgeous piece of cricket, 3355 undergraduates, 336 ”

“ There is no more entrancing sport than cricket, and nowhere does cricket present itself in a more entrancing form than at Cambridge, The best of grounds, the snuggest of pavilions, and the most charming sociality are to be found everywhere; and there is cricket of every kind, whether for the crack 'Varsity bat or bowler, whose county is sighing for the Long Vac, or for the fifth-rate cricketer, who never achieved any greater distinction than getting his "house" cap at school: every class and kind is amply catered for. ”

“ For a University man a place in his University eleven is as keen an object of ambition now as it used to be, and though the bowling may be weak and the fielding not so good as it ought to be, still University cricket is the same as it always has been—the embodiment of the purest amateur spirit of the game. But forty years ago, to be selected to represent the Gentlemen or the Players, as the case might be, set the seal on both amateurs and professionals, in the same way as to be selected to play for England against Australia does now. ”

“ Neither must we forget the All England and United Elevens, who, under the generalship of Clarke or Wisden, play numbers varying from fourteen to twenty-two in almost every county in England. So proud are provincial clubs of this honour that, besides a subscription of some 70l, and part or all of the money at the field-gate being willingly accorded for their services, much hospitality is exercised wherever they go. This tends to a healthy circulation of the life's blood of cricket, vaccinating and inoculating every wondering rustic with the principles of the national game. ”

“ Hence the captain has only to use his judgment on the eventful day—judgment founded on the state of the wicket—whether he will play Noakes for his slow bowling or Stokes for his "expresses."
Of college cricket pure and simple there is not a great deal to be written. It is full of amusement and interest to the participators—what game of cricket is not?—but there is an absolute dearth of any element corresponding to "house feeling" at schools. Nor is there any form of competition on the League system or any other system: colleges are too many, and term is too short. ”

“ Originally founded as purely financial speculations, for the promotion and success of which the best cricketing talent of the country was enlisted, they made annual progresses through England, meeting the picked local talent of all cricketing centres, generally reinforced by imported men, and meeting each other at Lord's on WhitMonday, this last match being regarded as at least the equal of the Gentlemen and Players fixture as a display of scientific cricket. ”

“ Far more enthusiasm is aroused by the Freshmen’s match. Here is the pick of the public schools of the year before, with a stray candidate from a colony or a private tutor’s. The cricket is not co-operative, for each is trying to make a good impression “on his own.” In the heat of modern competition, it is particularly difficult for a batsman to obtain his blue as a freshman. With bowling it is different, but the captain is prone to wait till the promising undergraduate has acquired some experience in county cricket. ”

“ This game of trundling along the ground at a two-foot wide wicket, and a man with a hockey-stick defending it, is really rather a travesty of the great and glorious game. The origin of cricket it was, no doubt, and as such is to be most piously revered, but actual cricket—hardly. Consider that old print of a game in progress on the Artillery Fields, where the players are equipped with the curved bats, wear knee-breeches, and the wicket is low and wide, with two stumps upright and one across. There is not a fieldsman on the off side of the wicket—a significant fact in itself ”