GENTLEMEN CRICKETERS OF ENGLAND.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1154, 22 September 1882, Page 2

GENTLEMEN CRICKETERS OF ENGLAND.

A writer in a recent number of the London World is very severe upon the Gentleman Players of England. He says : “ After the ignominious exhibitions of the last two weeks at the Oval, I think our Gentlemen cricketers had better go to school again, or turn their attention to knurr and spell, or some other such innocent and less elaborate pastime. What they did, or rather what they did not do, against the Australians was bad enough ; but what the players did with them was simply, as old Pepys might have said, beastly. Anything moi’e tame and ineffec. tual than their batting in the first innings, and, as far as the majority were concerned, in the second too, it would be impossible to conceive. And in the cricket against them there was certainly nothing extraordinary ; nay, through the most part of their second innings they had this in their favor that the best of the professional bowlers was unavailable through a sprained ankle. With the exception of Mr Hornby’s hitting, and Lord Harris’s steady play in the second innings, Kerhaps the great feature of the match was Ir Lucas’s defence in the first innings. At the close of the first day’s play he had made 18 in an hour and forty minutes, and was still in. At noon next day he resumed his innings, and added only two to his overnight score ; but he took an hour and ten minutes to get those two runs I As a specimen of defence this was certainly remarkable ; but it must be confessed that an occasional hit would have made it more entertaining to the spectators, as well as more useful to his side. It ia to be hoped that the Gentlemen will retrieve their honor at Lord's or will make at least a somewhat better fight of it, otherwise one will begin to fancy there must be some truth in those horrible prophecies which assign to lawn-tennis the future premiership among Eugliah games, vice cricket, played out.”