ENGLISH CRICKET.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 204, 4 September 1901, Page 1

ENGLISH CRICKET.

McLAREN’S TEAM.

(Donald Macdonald in the Argus.)

In connection with all English teams the question naturally arises—ls it representative ? That wo can never hope to get such an cloven to Australia as we meet in test matches on English grounds goes without saying, and if Australian or English people too closely scrutinise the matter of expenses that difficulty will be still further increased. That we have held wildly exaggerated ideas as to the amounts paid to prominent English amateurs is obvious, for one cannot imagine a man in Stoddart’s position so boldly challenging the point, without reasonable grounds, at any rate, for his position. So long as men who are not wealthy, or at any rate independent, and are yet amateurs, are asked to come to Australia for our entertainment, it would bo grossly unfair that in a paying gamo like cricket they should do so at personal loss. With the Australians it does not apply, for they earn all they get in a trying tour, and here, again, I think there is some little misconception. It is by no means the splendid thing for Australian teams that we, in our ignorance of the usages of English grounds, may suppose. Every year the provision in special stands increases, and that portion of the ground—the cheapest—from which the Australians draw a revenue, decreases, until Lord’s and many other leading grounds assume more of the appearance of a circus than a cricket ground. On neither side of the world apparently is cricket the fine commercial business for those who play it that we may have assumed. The more we carp and comment the more difficult will it be to get first-class elevens, and when cricket ceases to bo first-class now it drops from its place as a national pleasure. In the coming team we find few, if any, who have not played against us in international games, and though the absence of mon like Jackson and Ranjitsinghi may not bo ignored, still, as far as batting at any rate is concerned, the absence of one man, or indeed of several, does not greatly decrease the strength of an English cloven. They have so many batsmen of absolutely - first-class and very nearly even calibre that the form of the hour settles every- J thing. This team, so far as wo can see, j taking the selected batsmen, with the pro- r bable bowlers, will be remarkably strong c in batting. Indeed, they are all batsmen, and it will bo impossible to count the 1 score before the last man is out. Thus far there are no Richardsons or Hearnes to help bowlers to an average at the end of an innings. It should be a good team, and a popular one. In regard to bowling I found no want of variety in England. On the contrary, a variety which no intercolonial eleven in Australia possessed. The left-hander was everywhere; with us ho is singularly rare, though in that respect both suffered by comparison with another division of the empire, for once in a gamo between the two crack elevens of South Africa, on the pretty pine -encircled ground at Newlands, I saw amongst the 22 men engaged no fewer than seven left-handers. “While I was in England there appeared to be something of a craze for slow leg-break bowlers, and in the first half of tho season, at any rate, they wore singularly successful, though at best one regards that class of bowling merely as a useful resource on - perfect wickets. I think it was Vine, of ( Sussex, who impressed mo as being the most dangerous. [Tho slow bowler chosen by Maclaren is BJythe, of Kent.] If tho same success attended that class of bowlers on tho more perfect wickets of the later summer, it is possible that Maclaren may be tempted to include one of them in his team, though Englishmen are slow to cast away old and regular performers in favor of the comet ot a season. In a game between Surrey and Gloucester, on a perfect wicket, and after the regular attack in Richardson, Lockwood, and the rest had failed to make an ; impression, the Surrey captain went on * with underarms, and got eight wickets of ® the ton in a very little while. They were not slows, nor yet the seductive lobs with which Walter Humphries, the old Sussex bowler, was so successful, but a fairly fast daisy-clipping ball, delivered from the outside of the creases and curving all the way to the wicket. I remember them ] well, for they cut short a slashing innings c by Jessop, in which I was much interested. Of the batsmon chosen for Australia none will excite keener expectation than Jessop. I saw him twice, and he was considered to have failed rather because in one case he got only 6S, while in the other he easily topped the hundred. To describe Jessop is as difficult a feat as I know in writing of cricket. Australians will expect much, and at first—l mean in the beginning of his innings—be disappointed, for he has nothing of traditional style, and at first sight all the defects which ft great batsman presumably should not possess—an inclining bat, the crouching attitude of a novice, and a swing suggestive of a “blind smite.” If you watch the man and the bat only you expect nothing—save the old immature high hook to the on that one expects to drop half-way between the wicket and the boundary. If, on the contrary, you watch the ball you find direction, method, batting genius in every stroke. It travels like a streak, and when, without any such apparent effort as we saw in a Bonnor or a McDonnell, the ball soars high over the boundary, you simply gasp in amazement and wonder how it got there. His loose flannels and swinging sleeves are suggestive in some degree of slovenliness ; if lie had set himself deliberately both in method and dress to disguise his strength, the deception could not to be more perfect. He is really a short, powerfully-built batsman, though unfortunately not in such perfect health as one would wish with a man starting a hard Australian campaign. One singular quality in Jessop's batting—quite on a par with its wholly deceptive character—is that if you pay no attention to the scoring board you will put his score down .at 25, when he has really made 50.