CRICKET.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 194, 23 August 1901, Page 3

CRICKET.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright London, Aug. 21. At cricket, Sussex, playing against Yorkshire, declared their innings closed with five wickets down for 560, Fry made 209 and Killiek 200. Yorkshire only responded with 92 in the first innings.

There was a peculiar finish to a recent cricket match played at Clifton College (England). When the last man wont in tho scores were equal, and the excitement of tho rival teams reached a high pitch. The bowler, however, lost tho match for his side by sending down a no-ball ; but the annoying part of the business was that the ball beat tho batsman and hit tho stumps. So strongly did tho Melbourne C.C. resent the interference of tho Yorkshire committoo in advising their crack slow bowler, Wilfred Rhodes, not to accept Mr Maclaren’s invitation to make one of his team to visit Australia next season, that it is probable (says a Melbourne writor) that they will send tho following cable to Mr Maclaren to strengthen his hands ; “ If Yorkshire refuse to allow their men to visit Australia, Australians will probably refuse to play Yorkshire next torn - .” R. E. Foster, the Worcestershire captain (says Athletic News of June 17th), made a remarkable hit during his innings in the match with Derbyshire. Ho skied a ball] toj 'such a prodigious height that although the wicket-keeper always seemed to have a chance of making a catch, three runs had actually been made before the ball oamo to hand. It was one of the highest hits experienced cricketers had seen. Poor Chatterton, who was acting for Storor at the wicket, seemed bewildered by the magnitude of the task he had set himself in trying to make the catch, and appeared- to think afterwards that one of tho slips might with advantage have taken the ball, It would have required a Fred. Grace to make the catch.

On the subject of bowlers who adapt their methods to suit the peculiarity of each batsman, 0. 13. Fry says, in the Athletic Xews :—Trumble, the Australian, is, to my mind, the cleverest hand at this game. For llanji, for instance, he has three mid-ons or short-legs, and bowls at the leg stump : for Jessop lie’has a deep extra cover, and bowls just short of halfvolleys outside the off-stump : and so on. I supposo bowlers learn these things in Australia ; they pay. 1 am quite sure that if bowlers would set themselves to study these sort of tactics on our plump wickets, and if the standard of fielding throughout- wero reasonably high, the present idea that the game must be altered in some way to avoid a plethora of drawn matches would fade away into the smoke of exploded fancies. It is e, mistake to think bowlers cannot bowl nowadays. They can. There are plenty of bowlers about who have great natural powers. There are only a few of them, however, who really know how to use their abilities. It is brains that make a bowler on a plumb wicket. There are a few fast bowlers who are likely enough to shoot a man out when he first comes in. But in the brunt of the bowling problem, it is artifice and ingenuity that succeed. Many hatsmen of experience know a 1 most by instinct the difference between a bowler who has a game on and the bowler who has not. Quite apart from the merits of each ball bowled tbedifierence tells. For a knowing bowler is always upsetting a batsman’s settlement ; his half-volley is quite another thing than the automaton's halfvollev. The latter you hit with an easy mind; the former you think about, and, likely enough, in thinking you make some fatal error, Defend me from the bowler who, on a gc.od pitch, bowls hittable balls, With his field ivell placed.