THE FLAVOUR OF CRICKET OF OLDEN TIME

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1934, Page 25

THE FLAVOUR OF CRICKET OF OLDEN TIME

While an Australian eleven was making an extraordinary stand in the Test match a game of vastly different complexion was played at Sevenoaks, in Kent, on the ground of the famous Vine Club, says the "Manchester Guardian." Two elevens, captained respectively by Major-General Lord Saekville and Captain Lord .Gage, duplicated a match played between their ancestors two hundred years ago. It marked the end of a whole week's play between various teams to . celebrate the bicentenary of cricket.

All the panoply and pageantry of the eighteenth century was shown in leisured grace. Batsmen and the fielding side, wigged, peruked, and kmeebreeched, "played the game" with a; courtesy which, seems strange in the days of leg-theory. The spacious atmosphere of two hundred years ago was marked by the seats placed for the scorers Adjacent to the wicket. The stumps were two bifurcated sticks straddled by a single bail. The bats were more like baseball clubs than the scientific weapons of these days. The hitting nevertheless was exceedingly powerful, and many balls were hit to a boundary which did not exist in the old days.

Every expedient of costume and local

colour was employed' to make the match as realistic as possible. A small crowd of both sexes" dressed appropriately to the period, walked' about the ground in front of the thousands in modern clothes who filled the various stands. One startling anachronism occurred when a young woman in the fullskirted riding habit of the period removed her triangular hat, thus showing a shingled blonde head and a complexion which did not shame the arts of the manufacturers of lipstick and other artificial aids to beauty. The men had long clay pipes, which, however, they generally were content to carry in their hands: few had the courage to smoke them;

As their kinsmen did in the days which saw the birth of a code of cricket rules, Lord Sackville, with all the magnificence of old lace at the wrists of his long, plum-coloured coat, led the Gentlemen of Kent. In traditional style he drove to tHe Vine ground by coach with a footman in attendance. Lord Gage; whose flaming red wig made him easily distinguishable In the field, was the leader of the Sussex eleven. In accordance with the rules of 1774, "ye pitching of ye first .wicket" was "determined by ye cast of a piece of money." The victory went to Lord Sackville and his eleven.