First-class cricket

“ But first-class cricket is more difficult of attainment when the field is so crowded as to make it hard to decide which player out of three or four has caught you out, while your only chance of not being run out first ball is to take the wicket with you—always a possibility when the wicket is somebody's coat that has a way of getting mixed up with the batsman's feet. ”

“ Now the increase of the number of professional players is a natural result of the evolution of cricket into its present state and dimensions. Later on modern cricket will be reviewed in its relation to the past. Here it is sufficient to admit that the game has in a sense become more than a game. It is a huge institution, highly organised and demanding the entire time of those actively engaged in it, or at any rate so much of their time that they are good for little else. From being a recreation it has become an occupation. A. man nowadays cannot play first-class cricket and do much else. ”

“ To begin with, first-class cricket, including representative M.C.C., county, and university matches, is quite different from any other—partly because the results are universally regarded as more important, partly because certain obligations towards the spectators have to be taken into consideration. The last point applies equally to any match which people pay to come to see. Again, school cricket is quite different from ordinary club cricket, and both of them from country-house cricket. ”

“ What of the many men who take up cricket as their profession, and fail to get inside the sacred pale of first-class cricket? Well, an honest hard-working man can always make a living at the game. Nor are the failures relatively more numerous in this profession than in any other. It must not be supposed that these remarks are meant to encourage young fellows to adopt cricket as a profession. For it is to be remembered that the competition is very keen, and that success is impossible without certain natural gifts. ”

“ Since the first half of the 19th century the sort of cricket to engage public attention has very greatly changed, and the change has become emphasized since the exchange of visits between Australian and English teams has become an established feature of first-class cricket. ”

“ Facts show that the majority of elevens composed entirely or even principally of professionals do not succeed. Judicious blends work much better. There is no doubt that, if the high standard of what may be called "sportsmanship" is to be maintained, amateurs must continue to form a fair proportion of the entire body of first-class cricketers. But they can only do this by continuing to justify by their skill their inclusion in first-class elevens.
It is easy to see how the professional becomes a good bowler. ”

“ To most amateurs bowling is a joy all the sweeter for its rarity. The amateur will not resist the bait, and will come if he possibly can. There is no cricketer so easy to get on with, or who makes a house match go better, than a distinguished amateur. The bulk are absolutely without "side," and having learnt the sterner discipline of first-class cricket, absolutely revel in their sporting holiday, while the effect of their presence on the rest of the side is electrical. ”

“ But on looking round we are disappointed to find that the good captains in first-class (including of course county) cricket are extremely few, and these few are amateurs The cause of this may be that few men are able to take part in first-class cricket after they have served such an apprenticeship as would give them the experience, calmness, and judgment necessary for the difficult post of captain; or it may be that the qualifications for a good leader in the cricket-field are, from their very nature, seldom met with—in other words, that a captain is born not made, and very seldom born, too. ”

“ After that he may go to Oxford or Cambridge, and if he is fond of the game, he may play an unlimited quantity of cricket. Many amateurs after they leave the university disappear for ever from first-class cricket, as their time then ceases to be their own. ”

“ It is necessary in any work which professes to treat of cricket generally, that the laws and regulations of single wicket should be discussed, though the subject is not of much importance in these days; for, as far as first-class cricket is concerned, the game played with only one wicket has vanished altogether. Some few years ago, if an ordinary three-day match were over early, a scratch single-wicket match was sometimes improvised ”

“ A batsman is required to keep up his wicket and also to score runs for his side. It is possible to do the former without doing the latter, but not the latter without the former. A batsman must be able to work his eyes, hands, legs, and body in perfect unison. To make 50 or even 20 runs, no small amount of pluck, patience, resource, physical strength, and condition is needed. This applies to any ordinary game of cricket. In first-class cricket a batsman is put to an even more exacting test; for the higher the standard of skill, the more is required in every way of the performer. ”

“ Happily there is never the slightest whisper of suspicion against the straightness of our cricket players, and this is entirely owing to the absence of the betting element in connection with the game. It is an unfortunate fact that the tendency of first-class cricket nowadays is to swamp the amateur by the professional. Some of our best county teams are almost wholly composed of the latter class. ”

“ It is the result of the fact that, though there are innumerable amateur players of a certain standard, there are only a few who have both the necessary leisure and the necessary skill for first-class cricket. ”

“ Fortune had indeed deserted our Australian friends for the moment, and, worst of all, the absence of promising young players gave no hope for the immediate future. Yet, if we consider for a moment how comparatively small had been the amount of first-class cricket hitherto played in Australia, we may well rather wonder at the remarkable brilliancy of the players sent to us up to this time, than that they should now find some difficulty in replacing them. ”

“ Even if there were thirty such—and I do not suppose there are more than three—how could sufficient players of the necessary degree of skill be got together to provide first-class matches in all the many cricketloving towns in England? I cannot see how cricket, as a great institution for providing popular amusement, could, as things are now, exist without a class of people who devote themselves entirely to it. ”

“ The first-class professional cricketer is usually a well-made, strong-looking man, ranging from two or three and twenty to thirty-five, with agreeable, quiet manners with his superiors on the cricket field, the result, no doubt, of being so constantly in their society. ”

“ There are two answers to this question: first, that the Gentlemen every year play the Players, and are naturally always anxious to beat them; and, secondly, that the more cricket gets into the hands of professional players, the worse it will be for the game and its reputation. Now we wish most positively to state that, while laying down this second proposition, we do not wish or intend to say one word against the personal character of the English professional cricketer; on the contrary, our opinion is that the great majority of this class are honest, hard-working, and sober men. ”

“ J. H. Brain would be the two last who have donned the garment in first-class cricket. Long life and unabating good fellowship to Harlequins, present and future! There is every sign that the wish is destined to be fulfilled.
The Authentics Cricket Club was founded by Everard Britten-Holmes, in November 1883, who, from its birth in Brazenose College, Oxford, has acted as its Hon. ”

“ He had by no means so much cricket as he has now in the way of first-class county matches, but he filled up his time, if he arrived at a certain height of skill, by playing a series of touring matches against local twenty-twos, and these matches, if they did nothing else, gave an impetus to local cricket. There can be no doubt, however, that an enormous change has taken place in the type of professional cricketer. The first-class modern player moves altogether in a higher plane. He earns far more money in populous centres, such as Bradford, London, and Manchester. ”

“ They did much good work in popularizing the game, and an annual match between the two at Lord’s on Whit-Monday was once a great feature of the season; but the increase of county cricket led eventually to their disbandment.
At this period, and much later, the first-class matches of “M.C.C. and ground” (i.e. ground-staff, or professionals attached to the club) occupied a far greater amount of importance than is at present the case. In recent years over 150 minor matches of the utmost value in propagating the best interests of cricket are annually played by the leading club. ”

“ A little hitting practice at college nets, where the professional is not likely to be very first-class, often passes away a stray hour; but the first introduction to Cambridge cricket, unless a casual college match has occurred, will probably be in the Freshmen's match, when the sides are captained by the 'Varsity captain and secretary respectively, and are, as far as is possible, chosen so as to be equally balanced. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It would be far better to tell people how to field, or even how to watch with a view to interest and improvement. Reforms must aim at giving amusement, interest, attractiveness to the play of the average cricketer.
Let us consider a common experience in a one-day College match at Cambridge, putting aside the wet or rather the difficult wicket on which every player gets a knock; we want to think of Cricket at its best—on a{237} fine day and a good wicket. The side that wins the toss sends in its first two or three bats; they pile up some hundreds of runs ”

“ 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. ”

“ With the Players the difficulty is to know whom not to include. They number among themselves enough good bowlers to furnish half-a-dozen elevens. High-class cricket nowadays is in danger of passing altogether into the hands of the professionals. ”

“ The Oxford and Cambridge match was at first, perhaps, too much of the former: it is now tending in the direction of the latter.
No human institution is perfect: it will always tend to excess or defect. But how nearly perfect in its own way is cricket, and especially Oxford and Cambridge cricket! It is a game which keeps boys out of mischief. It is a training of youth for a manly life. It lays up a store of strength and health against old age. It makes individual men lifelong friends. It unites whole schools and universities. ”

“ Occasionally a shining light appears on the horizon which, has acquired its brilliance in a smaller school; but these may be regarded as outside the usual cricket system, as splendid though rare visitors. This is only natural: the expense of thorough training, of the ground and its up-keep, to say nothing of the difficulty of finding in a small school enough good cricketers to prevent the game from being in the hands of two or three, practically excludes small schools from any possibility of competition with their more favoured compeers. ”

“ That it is advantageous is regarded as an axiom of cricket. No one thinks of disputing it. A few considerations are sufficient to establish the point. The two chief are, that the side which goes in first is almost sure to get the best of the wicket, and that it is much easier to prevent runs than to make them. With regard to the first consideration, it is quite obvious that unless the weather plays tricks a wicket cannot but be truer and better in the first than in the second, and in the third than in the fourth, innings of a match. ”

“ In Nottingham and the West Riding towns, hundreds of boys may be seen playing almost at the mouth of coal-pits, and the practice they get enables them to become professional players.
Amateurs are not by any means in the same situation. Apart from the natural qualifications any lad may chance to possess, he is largely benefited or the reverse by the atmosphere of the schools to which he is sent. About the age of thirteen he is sent to a large public school, where cricket is regularly taught, and he has a great deal of experience if he can manage to get into his school eleven. ”

“ 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. ”