Transcriber’s Note
In this text version of “Cricket”: Words in italics are marked with
_underscores_. Words in small capitals are shown in UPPER CASE.
The three asterisks which mark the note at the end of Chapter I,
were originally printed as an inverted asterism.
Full page figures have been moved near to the text they illustrate.
Figures in the text have been moved to the start or end of the
paragraph.
In the ‘Likely balls’, and ‘Off breaks’ diagrams, the ball positions
are lettered from left to right.
Footnotes have been moved to the end of chapters.
Variant spelling and inconsistent hyphenation are retained, in a
few cases, missing punctuation has been added for consistency, e.g.
to match quotation marks. A few palpable printing errors have been
corrected.
Other changes that have been made are listed at the end of the book.
The Badminton Library
OF
SPORTS AND PASTIMES
EDITED BY
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, K.G.
ASSISTED BY ALFRED E. T. WATSON
_CRICKET_
THE BADMINTON LIBRARY.
28 Volumes. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. each volume.
ARCHERY. By C. J. LONGMAN, Col. H. WALROND, &c. 195 Illustrations and
2 Maps.
ATHLETICS. By MONTAGUE SHEARMAN. 51 Illustrations.
BIG GAME SHOOTING. By C. PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY, &c.
Vol. I.--AFRICA AND AMERICA. 77 Illustrations. Vol. II.--EUROPE,
ASIA, AND THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 73 Illustrations.
BILLIARDS. By Major W. BROADFOOT, R.E. 29 Illustrations and numerous
Diagrams.
COURSING AND FALCONRY. By HARDING COX and the Hon. GERALD LASCELLES.
76 Illustrations.
CRICKET. By A. G. STEEL and the Hon. R. H. LYTTELTON. 65
Illustrations.
CYCLING. By the Earl of ALBEMARLE and G. LACY HILLIER. 59
Illustrations.
DANCING. By Mrs. LILLY GROVE, F.R.G.S., &c. 131 Illustrations.
DRIVING. By the Duke of BEAUFORT. 65 Illustrations.
FENCING, BOXING, AND WRESTLING. By WALTER H. POLLOCK, F. C. GROVE, C.
PREVOST, &c. 42 Illustrations.
FISHING. By H. CHOLMONDELEY-PENNELL.
Vol. I.--SALMON, TROUT, and GRAYLING. 158 Illustrations.
Vol. II.--PIKE and other COARSE FISH. 132 Illustrations.
GOLF. By HORACE HUTCHINSON, the Right Hon. A. J. BALFOUR, M.P., &c.
89 Illustrations.
HUNTING. By the Duke of BEAUFORT, K.G., and MOWBRAY MORRIS. 53
Illustrations.
MOUNTAINEERING. By C. T. DENT, Sir W. M. CONWAY, &c. 108
Illustrations.
POETRY (THE) OF SPORT. Edited by HEDLEY PEEK. 106 Illustrations.
RACING AND STEEPLECHASING. By the Earl of SUFFOLK AND BERKSHIRE, W.
G. CRAVEN, &c. 58 Illustrations.
RIDING AND POLO. By ROBERT WEIR, J. MORAY BROWN, &c. 59 Illustrations.
ROWING. By R. P. P. ROWE and C. M. PITMAN. With Chapters on Steering,
Metropolitan Rowing, and on PUNTING. With 75 Illustrations.
SEA-FISHING. By JOHN BICKERDYKE, W. SENIOR, Sir H. W. GORE BOOTH,
Bart., and A. C. HARMSWORTH. 197 Illustrations.
SHOOTING. By Lord WALSINGHAM and Sir RALPH PAYNE-GALLWEY, Bart.
Vol. I.--FIELD AND COVERT. 105 Illustrations.
Vol. II.--MOOR AND MARSH. 65 Illustrations.
SKATING, CURLING, TOBOGGANING, &c. By J. M. HEATHCOTE, C. G. TEBBUTT,
&c. 284 Illustrations.
SWIMMING. By ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR and WILLIAM HENRY. 119 Illustrations.
TENNIS, LAWN TENNIS, RACKETS, AND FIVES. By J. M. and C. G.
HEATHCOTE, &c. 79 Illustrations.
YACHTING. By Lord BRASSEY, the Earl of ONSLOW, &c.
Vol. I.--CRUISING, CONSTRUCTION, RACING RULES, &c. 114 Illustrations.
Vol. II.--YACHTING IN AMERICA AND THE COLONIES, RACING, &c. 195
Illustrations.
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 39 Paternoster Row, London and Bombay.
[Illustration: CAUGHT AND BOWLED]
CRICKET
BY
A. G. STEEL
AND THE
HON. R. H. LYTTELTON
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY
A. LANG, W. G. GRACE, R. A. H. MITCHELL, AND F. GALE
[Illustration: Roundel of Batsman waiting on bench]
_WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS AFTER LUCIEN DAVIS
AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS_
Sixth Edition, thoroughly revised
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
AND BOMBAY
1898
_All rights reserved_
_BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE._
_First Edition, June 1888; Reprinted August 1888, January 1889,
September 1890. New Edition, thoroughly revised and with additions,
December 1893. New Edition, thoroughly revised and with additions, July
1898._
_DEDICATION TO H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES._
BADMINTON: _June, 1888_.
Having received permission to dedicate these volumes, the BADMINTON
LIBRARY of SPORTS and PASTIMES, to HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF
WALES, I do so feeling that I am dedicating them to one of the best and
keenest sportsmen of our time. I can say, from personal observation,
that there is no man who can extricate himself from a bustling and
pushing crowd of horsemen, when a fox breaks covert, more dexterously
and quickly than His Royal Highness; and that when hounds run hard
over a big country, no man can take a line of his own and live with
them better. Also, when the wind has been blowing hard, often have I
seen His Royal Highness knocking over driven grouse and partridges and
high-rocketing pheasants in first-rate workmanlike style. He is held to
be a good yachtsman, and as Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron is
looked up to by those who love that pleasant and exhilarating pastime.
His encouragement of racing is well known, and his attendance at the
University, Public School, and other important Matches testifies to
his being, like most English gentlemen, fond of all manly sports. I
consider it a great privilege to be allowed to dedicate these volumes
to so eminent a sportsman as His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,
and I do so with sincere feelings of respect and esteem and loyal
devotion.
BEAUFORT.
[Illustration: BADMINTON.]
PREFACE.
A few lines only are necessary to explain the object with which these
volumes are put forth. There is no modern encyclopædia to which the
inexperienced man, who seeks guidance in the practice of the various
British Sports and Pastimes, can turn for information. Some books there
are on Hunting, some on Racing, some on Lawn Tennis, some on Fishing,
and so on; but one Library, or succession of volumes, which treats
of the Sports and Pastimes indulged in by Englishmen--and women--is
wanting. The Badminton Library is offered to supply the want. Of the
imperfections which must be found in the execution of such a design we
are conscious. Experts often differ. But this we may say, that those
who are seeking for knowledge on any of the subjects dealt with will
find the results of many years’ experience written by men who are in
every case adepts at the Sport or Pastime of which they write. It is to
point the way to success to those who are ignorant of the sciences they
aspire to master, and who have no friend to help or coach them, that
these volumes are written.
To those who have worked hard to place simply and clearly before the
reader that which he will find within, the best thanks of the Editor
are due. That it has been no slight labour to supervise all that
has been written he must acknowledge; but it has been a labour of
love, and very much lightened by the courtesy of the Publisher, by
the unflinching, indefatigable assistance of the Sub-Editor, and by
the intelligent and able arrangement of each subject by the various
writers, who are so thoroughly masters of the subjects of which they
treat. The reward we all hope to reap is that our work may prove useful
to this and future generations.
THE EDITOR.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE HISTORY OF CRICKET 1
_By Andrew Lang._
II. BATTING 34
_By the Hon. R. H. Lyttelton._
III. BOWLING 94
_By A. G. Steel._
IV. CAPTAINCY 187
_By A. G. Steel._
V. UMPIRES 217
_By A. G. Steel._
VI. FIELDING 245
_By the Hon. R. H. Lyttelton._
VII. COUNTRY CRICKET 280
_By F. Gale._
VIII. BORDER CRICKET 292
_By Andrew Lang._
IX. HOW TO SCORE 299
_By W. G. Grace._
X. THE AUSTRALIANS 313
_By A. G. Steel._
XI. THE UNIVERSITY CRICKET MATCH 328
_By the Hon. R. H. Lyttelton._
XII. GENTLEMEN AND PLAYERS 356
_By the Hon. R. H. Lyttelton._
XIII. THE ART OF TRAINING YOUNG CRICKETERS 375
_By R. A. H. Mitchell._
XIV. SINGLE WICKET 386
_By the Hon. R. H. Lyttelton._
INDEX 395
_ILLUSTRATIONS._
(ENGRAVED BY J. D. COOPER AND R. B. LODGE, AFTER DRAWINGS BY LUCIEN
DAVIS, AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY G. MITCHELL, MARTIN & TYLER, AND
MEDRINGTON & CO.)
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
ARTIST
CAUGHT AND BOWLED _Lucien Davis_ _Frontispiece_
{_From a picture ascribed_ }
A YOUNG CRICKETER { _to Gainsborough,_ } _To face p._ 1
{ _belonging to the M.C.C._}
CRICKET {_After Hayman’s picture,_ } ″ 12
{ _belonging to M.C.C._ }
ROYAL ACADEMY CLUB IN }
MARYLEBONE FIELDS } ″ ″ ″ 28
CAUGHT AT THE WICKET _Lucien Davis_ ″ 68
RUN OUT ″ ″ 198
A. E. STODDART _From a photograph_ ″ 212
COUNTRY CRICKET _Lucien Davis_ ″ 280
(_Mitcham_)
M.C.C. AND GROUND _v._ }
AUSTRALIANS, LORD’S, } ″ ″ 308
MAY 22, 1884 }
THE CRITICS ″ ″ 324
THE INTERVAL ″ ″ 348
KENNINGTON OVAL, 1854 ″ 366
OUR NATIONAL GAME _Lucien Davis_ ″ 376
ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT.
ARTIST PAGE
_Vignette on Title-page_ _Lucien Davis_
‘MISS WICKET’ { _From an old print,_ } 7
{ _1770_ }
THE CHAMPION _Lucien Davis_ 34
W. G. GRACE READY TO RECEIVE THE } ″ 44
BALL }
FORWARD PLAY _From a photograph_ 50
‘HALF-COCK,’ OR OVER THE CREASE PLAY ″ 52
‘BACK-PLAY’ TO A BUMPING BALL ″ 55
GUNN CUTTING ″ 59
SHREWSBURY CUTTING ″ 60
OLD-FASHIONED SWEEP TO LEG (GUNN) ″ 62
SQUARE-LEG HIT (W. G. GRACE) ″ 64
‘THE GLIDE’ (W. G. GRACE) ″ 66
FORCING STROKE OFF THE LEGS ″ 68
OFF DRIVE ″ 70
RUNNING OUT TO DRIVE (SHREWSBURY) ″ 77
GUNN PLAYING FORWARD ″ 93
‘THE DEMON BOWLER’ _Lucien Davis_ 94
THE LEG-BREAK DIAGRAM 110
POSITION OF FIELD IF BOWLING ON LEG } 111
SIDE }
THE LEG-BREAK _From a photograph_ 113
LIKELY BALLS; AND WHAT MAY BECOME } 114
OF THEM IF NOT CORRECTLY PLAYED }
THE OFF BREAK _From a photograph_ 116
‘OFF BREAKS’ 117
SLOW BALL 123
FAST BALL 123
A HOT RETURN _From a photograph_ 127
A POKEY BATSMAN DEALING WITH A } _From a photograph_ 139
HIGH-DROPPING FULL-PITCH }
LOW DELIVERY ″ 167
DOUBTFUL DELIVERY ″ 174
THE FIELD FOR A FAST RIGHT-ARM } 176
BOWLER }
THE FIELD FOR A FAST LEFT-ARM BOWLER 177
GOING IN _Lucien Davis_ 187
ETON _v._ HARROW ″ 208
AT WICKET AFTER BOWLING _From a photograph_ 214
‘GUARD, PLEASE, UMPIRE’ _Lucien Davis_ 217
A CLEAR CASE _From a photograph_ 224
‘YOU MUST GO, JACK’ ″ 229
STUMPED _Lucien Davis_ 243
‘SAVING THE FOUR’ ″ 245
BACKING UP ″ 247
‘OVERTAKING AND PICKING UP’ _From a photograph_ 249
THE RIGHT WAY TO CATCH ″ 250
THE WRONG WAY TO CATCH ″ 251
WICKET-KEEPER--SHERWIN IN POSITION ″ 252
WICKET-KEEPER--ANOTHER POSITION ″ 254
HIT TO SQUARE-LEG _Lucien Davis_ 256
POINT _From a photograph_ 261
SHORT-SLIP ″ 264
THE WRONG POSITION FOR STOPPING THE } ″ 273
BALL }
AN ANXIOUS MOMENT _Lucien Davis_ 279
A SIX-YEAR OLD _From a photograph_ 375
DRAWING AWAY FROM THE WICKET _Lucien Davis_ 379
[Illustration: A YOUNG CRICKETER
(_From a Picture ascribed to Gainsborough belonging to the M.C.C._)]
CRICKET.
CHAPTER I.
THE HISTORY OF CRICKET.
(BY ANDREW LANG.)
_Archæology of the Game._
Hundreds of pages have been written on the origin and early history of
Cricket. The Egyptian monuments and Holy Scriptures, the illuminated
books of the Middle Ages, and the terra-cottas and vases of Greece
have been studied, to no practical purpose, by historians of the game.
Outside of England,[1] and before the fortieth year of the reign
of Elizabeth, there are no documents for the existence of cricket.
Doubtless in rudimentary and embryonic forms, it may have existed. Of
those forms we still possess a few, as ‘rounders’ and ‘stool-ball,’ and
we can also study degraded shapes of cricket, which naturally revert to
the early germs of the pastime as degenerate human types throw back to
the monkey. There is a sport known at some schools as ‘stump-cricket,’
‘snob-cricket,’ or (mysteriously and locally) as ‘Dex,’[2] which is
a degenerate shape of the game, and which is probably very like the
rudimentary shapes. These degradations are reversals or returns to
primitive forms.
A ball, more or less light and soft, is bowled or tossed at any fixed
object, which, in turn, is defended by a player armed with a stick,
stump, hair-brush, or other instrument. The player counts as many
points as he can run backwards and forwards, after hitting the ball,
between the object he defends and some more or less distant goal,
before the ball is returned. He loses his position when the object
he defends is struck by the ball, or when the ball is caught, after
he has hit it, before touching the ground. Such is the degraded form
of cricket, and such, apparently, was its earliest shape. Ancient
surviving forms in which a similar principle exists are ‘rounders’
and ‘stool-ball.’ The former has been developed in America into the
scientific game of ‘base-ball,’ the name being Old English, while the
scientific perfection is American. It is impossible to trace cricket
farther back than games in which points are scored in proportion to
the amount of ground that the hitter can cover before the return of
the struck ball. Now other forms of ball-play, as tennis, in different
guises, can be found even among the ancient Aztecs,[3] while the Red
Indians practised the form which is hockey among us, and the French and
Walloons have sports very closely corresponding to golf; but games with
the slightest analogy to cricket are very rare. Stool-ball is the most
important foreshadowing of cricket. As early as 1614, Chapman, in his
translation of the sixth book of the ‘Odyssey,’ makes Nausicaa and her
girls play stool-ball. Chapman gives certain technical terms, which,
of course, have nothing corresponding to them in Homer, but which are
valuable illustrations of the English game.
Nausicaa seems to have received a trial ball--
Nausicaa, with the wrists of ivory,
The _liking-stroke_ struck.
Again,
The Queen now, for the upstroke, struck the ball
Quite _wide_ of th’ other maids, and made it fall
Amidst the whirlpools.
thereby, doubtless, scoring a lost ball. He describes this as ‘a
stool-ball chance.’ Chapman does not say whether the ball was bowled to
Nausicaa. Everything shows that Dr. Johnson was writing at random when
he described stool-ball as a game ‘in which a ball is driven from stool
to stool.’ Chapman conceives Nausicaa as making a ‘boundary hit.’ There
would be no need of such hitting if balls were only ‘driven from stool
to stool.’
Strutt’s remarks on stool-ball merely show that he did not appreciate
the importance of the game as an early form of cricket. ‘I have been
informed,’ he says, ‘that a pastime called stool-ball is practised to
this day in the northern parts of England, which consists simply in
setting a stool upon the ground, and one of the players takes his place
before it, while his antagonist, standing at a distance, tosses a ball
with the intention of striking the stool, and this it is the business
of the former to prevent by beating it away with his hand, reckoning
one to the game for every stroke of the ball,’ apparently without
running. ‘If, on the contrary, it should be missed by the hand and
strike the stool, the players change places.’ Strutt adds, in a note,
that he believes the player may be caught out. He describes another
game in which stools are set as ‘bases’ in a kind of base-ball. He
makes the usual quotations from Durfey about ‘a match for kisses at
stool-ball to play.’[4]
Brand’s notes on stool-ball do no more than show that men and women
played for small wagers, as in Herrick,
At stool-ball, Lucia, let us play
For sugar, cakes, and wine.[5]
It is plain enough that stool-ball was a game for girls, or for boys
and girls, and Herrick and Lucia. As at present played stool-ball is
a woman’s game; but no stool is used: what answers to the wicket is a
square board at a certain height on a pole, much as if one bowled at
the telegraph instead of the stumps. Consequently, as at base-ball,
only full pitches can be tossed. However, in stool-ball we recognise
the unconscious beginnings of better things. As much may be said for
‘cat-and-dog.’ This may be regarded either as a degraded attempt at
early cricket, played by economists who could not afford a ball, or
as a natural _volks-kriket_, dating from a period of culture in which
balls had not yet been invented. The archæologist will prefer the
latter explanation, but we would not pedantically insist on either
alternative. In Jamieson’s ‘Scotch Dictionary,’[6] cat-and-dog is
described as a game for three.[7] Two holes are cut at a distance of
thirteen yards. At each hole stands a player with a club, called a
‘dog.’ A piece of wood,[8] four inches long by one in circumference,
is tossed, in place of a ball, to one of the dogsmen. His object is to
keep the cat out of the hole. ‘If the cat be struck, he who strikes it
changes places with the person who holds the other club, and as often
as the positions are changed one is counted as won in the game by the
two who hold the clubs.’ Jamieson says this is an ‘ancient sport in
Angus and Lauder.’ A man was bowled when the cat got into the hole he
defended. We hear nothing of ‘caught and bowled.’[9]
Cat-and-dog, or, more briefly, cat, was a favourite game with John
Bunyan. He was playing when a voice from heaven (as he imagined)
suddenly darted into his soul, with some warning remarks, as he was
‘about to strike the cat from the hole.’ The cat, here, seems to have
been quiescent. ‘Leaving my cat on the ground, I looked up to Heaven,’
and beheld a vision. Let it be remembered that Bunyan was playing on
Sunday. The game of cat, as known to him, was, apparently, rather a
rude variety of knurr and spell than of cricket. This form is mentioned
by Strutt.[10] Both stool-ball and cat-and-dog have closer affinities
with cricket than club-ball as represented in Strutt’s authorities.[11]
Perhaps we may say that wherever stool-ball was played, or cat-and-dog,
there cricket was potentially present. As to the derivation of the word
‘cricket,’ philologists differ as much as usual. Certainly ‘cricket’
is an old word for a stool, though in this sense it does not occur
in Skeat.[12] In Todd’s ‘Johnson,’ we find, ‘Cricket: a low seat or
stool, from German _kriechen_, to creep.’ In Scotland we talk of a
‘creepy-stool.’
It’s a wise wife that kens her weird,
What though ye mount the creepy!
says Allan Ramsay, meaning the stool of repentance. If, then,
stool-ball be the origin of cricket, and if a cricket be a stool,
‘cricket’ may be merely a synonym for stool-ball. Todd’s ‘Johnson,’
with ignominious ignorance, styles cricket ‘a sport in which the
contenders drive a ball with sticks or bats in opposition to each
other.’ Johnson must have known better. In the ‘Rambler,’ No. 30, he
writes, ‘Sometimes an unlucky boy will drive his cricket-ball full in
my face.’ Observe, he says ‘drive,’ not ‘cut,’ nor ‘hit to leg.’
Professor Skeat says nothing of this derivation of ‘cricket’ from
cricket, a stool. He thinks ‘et’ may be a diminutive, added to the
Anglo-Saxon _cricc_, a staff. If that be so, cricket will mean
club-play rather than stool-ball. In any case, Professor Skeat has a
valuable quotation of ‘cricket’ from the French and English Dictionary
compiled in 1611, by Mr. Randle Cotgrave. He translates the French
_crosse_, ‘a crosier, or bishop’s staffe, also a _cricket staffe_,
or the crooked staffe wherewith boies play at cricket.’ Now the name
of the club used in French Flanders at the local kind of golf is _la
crosse_. It is a heavy, barbaric kind of golf-club.[13]
Thanks to Cotgrave, then, we know that in 1611 cricket was a boy’s
game, played with a crooked staff. The club, bat, or staff continued
to be crooked or curved at the blade till the middle of the eighteenth
century or later; and till nearly 1720 cricket was mainly a game for
boys. We may now examine the authorities for the earliest mentions of
cricket.
People have often regarded Florio’s expression in his Italian
Dictionary (1598) _cricket-a-wicket_ as the first mention of the noble
game. It were strange indeed if this great word first dropped from
the pen of an Italian! The quotation is ‘_sgrittare_, to make a noise
as a cricket; to play _cricket-a-wicket_, and be merry.’ I have no
doubt myself that this is a mere coincidence of sound. The cricket
(on the hearth) is a merry little beast, or has that reputation. The
term ‘cricket-a-wicket’ is a mere rhyming reduplication of sounds like
‘hob-nob’ or ‘tooral-ooral,’ or the older ‘Torelore,’ the name of a
mythical country in a French romance of the twelfth century. It is
an odd coincidence, no doubt, that the rhyming reduplication should
associate wicket with cricket. But, for all that, ‘cricket-a-wicket’
must pair off with ‘helter-skelter,’ ‘higgledy-piggledy,’ and
_Tarabara_ to which Florio gives cricket-a-wicket as an equivalent.[14]
[Illustration: ‘Miss Wicket.’ (From an old print, 1770.)]
Yet cricket was played in England, by boys at least, in Florio’s
time. The proof of this exists, or existed, in the ‘Constitution
Book of Guildford,’ a manuscript collection of records once in the
possession of that town. In the ‘History of Guildford,’ an anonymous
compilation, published by Russell in the Surrey town, and by Longmans
in London (1801), there are extracts from the ‘Constitution Book.’
They begin with a grant _anno_ li. Ed. III. For our purpose the only
important passages are pp. 201, 202. In the thirty-fifth year of
Elizabeth one William Wyntersmoll withheld a piece of common land,
to the extent of one acre, from the town. Forty years before, John
Parvishe had obtained leave to make a temporary enclosure there,
and the enclosure had never been removed. In the fortieth year of
Elizabeth this acre was still in dispute, when John Derrick, gent, aged
fifty-nine, one of the Queen’s Coroners for the county, gave evidence
that he ‘knew it fifty years ago or more. It lay waste and was used
and occupyed by the inhabitants of Guildeford to saw timber in and for
saw-pitts.... When he was a scholler in the free school of Guildeford
he and several of his fellowes did run and play there at crickett and
other plaies.’
This is the oldest certain authority for cricket with which I am
acquainted. Clearly it was a boy’s game in the early years of
Elizabeth. Nor was it a very scientific game if it could be played on
a wicket agreeably diversified by ‘saw-pitts.’ William Page may have
played cricket at Eton and learned to bat as well as ‘to hick and hack,
which they will do fast enough of themselves, and to cry _horum_.’ It
has already been shown that, in 1611, ‘boyes played at crickett,’ with
a crooked bat or ‘cricket-staffe.’
In 1676 we get a view of a summer day at Aleppo, and of British sailors
busy at the national game.
Henry Teonge, Chaplain on board H.M.S. ships ‘Assistance,’ ‘Bristol,’
and ‘Royal Oak,’ Anno 1675 to 1679, writes:--
[At Aleppo].
6.--This morning early (as it is the custom all summer longe) at the
least 40 of the English, with his worship the Consull, rod out of the
cytty about 4 miles to the Greene Platt, a fine vally by a river syde,
to recreate them selves. Where a princely tent was pitched; and wee
had severall pastimes and sports, as duck-hunting, fishing, shooting,
handball, krickett, scrofilo; and then a noble dinner brought thither,
with greate plenty of all sorts of wine, punch, and lemonads; and at 6
wee returne all home in good order, but soundly tyred and weary.[15]
When once the eighteenth century is reached cricket begins to find
mention in literature. Clearly the game was rising in the world and
was being taken up, like the poets of the period, by patrons. Lord
Chesterfield, whom Dr. Johnson found a patron so insufficient, talked
about cricket in a very proper spirit in 1740.[16] ‘If you have a right
ambition you will desire to excell all boys of your age at cricket
... as well as in learning.’ That is the right style of fatherly
counsel; but Philip Stanhope never came to ‘European reputation as
mid-wicket-on,’ like a hero of Mr. James Payn’s. Lord Chesterfield
also alludes to ‘your various occupations of Greek and cricket, Latin
and pitch-farthing,’ very justly coupling the nobler language with the
nobler game. Already in the fourth book of the ‘Dunciad,’ line 592, Mr.
Alexander Pope had sneered at cricket.[17] At what did Mr. Pope not
sneer? The fair, the wise, the manly,--Mrs. Arabella Fermor, Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu, Mr. Colley Cibber, and a delightful pastime,--he turns
up his nose at them and at everyone and everything!
_O le grand homme, rien ne lui peut plaire!_
See, he cries to Dulness, see--
The judge to dance his brother serjeant call,
The senator at cricket urge the ball.
Cricket was played at Eton early. Gray, writing to West, says,
‘There is my Lords Sandwich and Halifax--they are statesmen--do you
not remember them dirty boys playing at cricket?’[18] In 1736 Walpole
writes, ‘I can’t say I am sorry I was never quite a school-boy: an
expedition against bargemen, or a match at cricket may be very pretty
things to recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember things very
near as pretty.’[19] The bargee might have found an interview with Miss
Horace pretty to recollect, but when Horace pretends that he might have
been in the Eleven if he liked, the absurdity becomes too glaring. We
are reminded of Charles Lamb’s ‘Here is Wordsworth saying he might
have written “Hamlet” if he had had the “mind.”’ Cowper pretends (in
1781) that ‘as a boy I excelled at cricket and football,’ but he adds,
with perfect truth, ‘the fame I acquired by achievements that way is
long since forgotten.’ The author of the ‘Task,’ and of a good many
hymns, was no Mynn nor Grace. We shall find but few of the English
poets distinguished as cricketers, or fond of tuning the lyre to sing
Pindaric strains of batters and bowlers. Byron tells a friend how
they ‘together joined in cricket’s manly toil’ (1807). Another noble
exception is George Huddesford,[20] author of ‘Salmagundi’ (1791, p.
66)--
But come, thou genial son of spring
Whitsuntide, and with thee bring
_Cricket_, nimble boy and light,
In slippers red and drawers white,
Who o’er the nicely measured land
Ranges around his comely band,
Alert to intercept each blow,
Each motion of the wary foe.
This passage gives us the costume--white drawers and red slippers. The
contemporary works of art, whereof see a little gallery on the walls
of the pavilion at Lord’s, show that men when they played also wore
a kind of jockey cap. In a sketch of the Arms of Shrewsbury School,
little boys are playing; the bat is a kind of hockey-stick as in the
preceding century. There are only two stumps, nor more in Hayman’s
well-known picture engraved 1755. The fields are well set for the
bowling, and are represented with their hands ready for a catch. There
are umpires in their usual places; the scores are kept by men who cut
notches in tally-sticks. Such ‘notches’ were ‘got’ by ‘Miss Wicket’ a
sportive young lady in a somewhat later caricature (p. 7). The ball
(1770) has heavy cross-seams. But a silver ball, about a hundred years
old, used as a snuff-box by the Vine Club at Sevenoaks, is marked with
seams like those of to-day. Miss Wicket, also, carries a curved bat,
but it has developed beyond the rustic crooked stick, and more nearly
resembles some of the old curved bats at Lord’s, with which a strong
man must have hit prodigious skyers. We may doubt if bats were ever
such ‘three-man beetles’ as the players in an undated but contemporary
picture at Lord’s do fillip withal. The fields, in this curious
piece, are all in a line at square-leg, and disappear in a distance
unconscious of perspective.
[Illustration: After a Picture by Hayman, R.A., belonging to the M.C.C.]
Cricket had even before this date reached that height of prosperity
which provokes the attention of moralists. ‘Here is a fine morning:
let us go and put down some form of enjoyment,’ says the moralist. In
1743 a writer in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ was moved to allege that
‘the exercise may be strained too far.... Cricket is certainly a very
good and wholesome exercise, yet it may be abused if either great or
little people make it their business.’ The chief complaint is that
great and little people play together--butchers and baronets. Cricket
‘propagates a spirit of idleness at the very time when, with the
utmost industry, our debts, taxes, and decay of trade will scarcely
allow us to get bread.’ The Lydians, according to Herodotus, invented
games to make them forget the scarcity of bread. But the gentleman in
the magazine is much more austere than Herodotus. ‘The advertisements
most impudently recite that great sums are laid’; and it was, indeed,
customary to announce a match for 500_l._ or 1,000_l._ Whether these
sums were not drawn on Fancy’s exchequer, at least in many cases, we
may reasonably doubt. In his ‘English Game of Cricket’ (p. 138) the
learned Mr. Box quotes a tale of betting in 1711, from a document which
he does not describe. It appears that in 1711 the county of Kent played
All England, and money was lost and won, and there was a law-suit to
recover. The court said, ‘Cricket is, to be sure, a manly game and not
bad in itself, but it is the ill-use that is made of it by betting
above 10_l._ on it that is bad.’ To a humble fiver on the University
match this court would have had no kind of objection to make. The
history of betting at cricket is given by Mr. Pycroft in the ‘Cricket
Field’ (chap. vi.). A most interesting chapter it is.
The earliest laws of the game, or at least the earliest which have
reached us, are of the year 1774. A committee of noblemen and gentlemen
(including Sir Horace Mann, the Duke of Dorset, and Lord Tankerville)
drew them up at the ‘Star and Garter’ in Pall Mall. ‘The pitching of
the first wicket is to be determined by the toss of a piece of money.’
Does this mean that the sides tossed for which was to pitch the wicket?
As Nyren shows, much turned on the pitching of the wicket. Lumpy
(Stevens) ‘would invariably choose the ground where his balls would
shoot.’[21] In the rules of 1774, the distance between the stumps is
the same as at present. The crease is cut, not painted.[22] The stumps
are twenty-two inches in height; there is only one bail, of six inches
in length. ‘No ball,’ as far as crossing the crease goes, is just like
‘no ball’ to-day. Indeed, the game was essentially the game of to-day,
except that if a ball were hit ‘the other player may place his body
anywhere within the swing of his bat, so as to hinder the bowler from
catching her, but he must neither strike at her nor touch her with his
hands.’
At this moment of legislation, when the dim heroic age of cricket
begins to broaden into the boundless day of history, Mr. James Love,
comedian, appeared as the epic poet of the sport.[23] His quarto is
dedicated to the Richmond Club, and is inspired ‘by a recollection of
many Particulars at a time when the Game was cultivated with the utmost
Assiduity, and patronised by the personal Appearance[24] and Management
of some of the most capital People in the Kingdom.’ Mr. Love, in his
enthusiasm, publishes an exhortation to Britain, to leave all meaner
sports, and cultivate cricket only.
Hail CRICKET, glorious, manly, _British_ game,
First of all sports, be first alike in fame,
sings Love, as he warms to his work. He denounces ‘puny Billiards,’
played by ‘Beaus, dressed in the quintessence of the fashion.
The robust _Cricketer_ plays in his shirt, the Rev. Mr. W----d,
particularly, appears almost naked.’
One line of Mr. Love’s,
_Where fainting vice calls folly to her aid_,
appears to him so excellent that he thinks it must be plagiarised, and,
in a note, invites the learned reader to find out where he stole it
from. To this a critic, Britannicus Severus, answers that ‘Gentlemen
who have CRICKET in their heads cannot afford to pore over a parcel of
musty Authors.’ Indeed, your cricketer is rarely a bookworm.
‘Leave the dissolving song, the baby dance,
To soothe the slaves of Italy and France,
and play up,’ cries this English bard.
In the second book, the poet comes to business--Kent _v._ All England.
The poet, after the custom of his age, gives dashes after an initial,
in place of names. In notes he interprets his dashes, and introduces
us to Newland, of Slendon, in Sussex, a farmer, and a famous batsman;
Bryan, of London, bricklayer; Rumney, gardener to the Duke of Dorset;
Smith, keeper of the artillery ground; Hodswell, the bowling tanner of
Dartford; Mills, of Bromley; Robin, commonly called Long Robin; Mills,
Sawyer, Cutbush, Bartrum, Kips, and Danes; Cuddy, the tailor; Derigate,
of Reigate; Weymark, the miller, with Newland, Green, two Harrises, and
Smith made up the teams. The match is summed up in the Argument of the
Third Book.
_The Game._--Five on the side of the Counties are out for three
Notches. The Odds run high on the side of Kent. Bryan and Newland go
in; they help the Game greatly. Bryan is unfortunately put out by
Kips. Kent, the First Innings, is Thirteen ahead. The Counties go in
again, and get Fifty-seven ahead. Kent, in the Second Innings, is very
near losing, the two last Men being in. Weymark unhappily misses a
Catch, and by that means Kent is victorious.
It was a splendid close match--but let us pity Weymark, immortal
butter-fingers. In the first innings the wicket-keeping of Kips to the
fast bowling of Hodswell was reckoned fine.
If Love was the Homer of cricket, the minstrel who won from
forgetfulness the glories of the dim Heroic Age, Nyren, was the
delightful Herodotus of the early Historic Period. John Nyren dedicated
his ‘Cricketer’s Guide and Recollections of the Cricketers of my Time,’
to the great Mr. William Ward, in 1833. He speaks of cricket as ‘an
elegant relaxation,’ and congratulates Mr. Ward on ‘having gained the
_longest hands_ of any player upon record.’ This famed score was made
on July 24, 25, 1820, on the M.C.C. ground. The number was 278, ‘108
more than any player ever gained;’ Aylward’s 167 had previously been
the longest score I know. Mr. Ward’s feat, moreover, was ‘after the
increase of the stumps in 1817.’ Old Nyren was charmed in his declining
hours by a deed like this, yet grieved by the modern bowlers, and their
habit ‘of throwing the ball.’ The history of that innovation will
presently be sketched.
Nyren was born at Hambledon, in Hampshire, on December 15, 1764, and
was therefore a small boy when Love sang. He died at Bromley, June 28,
1837. Like most very great men, he was possibly of Scottish blood. He
was a Catholic and believed that the true spelling of the family name
was Nairne, and that they came south after being ‘out in the ’15 or
’45.’ Mr. Charles Cowden Clarke describes him as a thoroughly good and
amiable man, and as much may be guessed from his writings.
Mr. Clarke agreed with him in his dislike of round-hand bowling, save
when Lillywhite was pitted against Fuller Pilch--a beautiful thing to
see, as the Bishop of St. Andrews testifies, ‘speaking,’ like Dares
Phrygius of the heroes at Troy, ‘as he that saw them.’ In Nyren’s
youth--say 1780--Hambledon was the centre of cricket. The boy had a
cricketing education. He learned a little Latin of a worthy old Jesuit,
but was a better hand at the fiddle. In that musical old England, where
John Small, the noted bat, once charmed an infuriated bull by his
minstrelsy, Nyren performed a moral miracle. He played to the gipsies,
and so won their hearts that they always passed by his hen-roost when
they robbed the neighbours. Music and cricket were the Hambledon man’s
delight. His father, Richard Nyren, was, with Thomas Brett, one of the
chief bowlers. Brett was ‘the fastest as well as straightest bowler
that was ever known’; no _jerker_, but with a very high delivery.
The height of the delivery was not _à la Spofforth_, but was got by
sending the ball out from under the armpit. How this manœuvre could
be combined with pace is a great mystery. Richard Nyren had this art,
‘always to the length.’ Brett’s bowling is described as ‘tremendous,’
yet Tom Sueter could stump off it--Tom of the honourable heart, and the
voice so sweet, pure and powerful. Yet on those wickets Tom needed a
long-stop to Brett--George Lear. The Bishop has seen three long-stops
on to Brown; ‘but he _was_ a jerker.’ At that date the long-stop
commonly dropped on one knee as he received the ball. An old Eton boy,
G. B., who was at school between 1805 and 1814, says, in a letter to
the _Standard_ (dated September 21, 1886), that ‘a pocket-handkerchief
was allowed round the dropping knee of long-stop.’ A bowler with a low
delivery was Lambert, ‘the little farmer.’ ‘His ball would twist from
the off stump into the leg. _He was the first I remember who introduced
this deceitful and teasing way of delivering the ball._’ Cricket was
indeed rudimentary when a break from the off was a new thing. ‘The
Kent and Surrey men could not tell what to make of that cursed twist
of his.’ Lambert acquired the art as Daphnis learned his minstrelsy,
while he tended his father’s sheep. He would set up hurdles instead of
a net and bowl for hours. But it needed old Nyren to teach him to bowl
outside the off stump, so little alert was the mind of this innovator.
Among outsiders, Lumpy, the Surrey man, was the most accurate ‘to a
length,’ and he was much faster than Lord Frederick Beauclerk. In these
days the home bowlers pitched the wickets to suit themselves. Thus they
had all the advantage of rough wickets on a slope; yet, even so, a
yokel with pluck and ‘an arm as long as a hop-pole,’ has been known to
slash Lumpy all over the field. But this could only have been done at
single wicket. A curious bowler of this age was Noah Mann, the fleetest
runner of his time, and a skilled horseman. He was a left-handed
bowler, and, as will be seen, he anticipated the magical ‘pitching’
of experts at base-ball. How he did this without throwing or jerking
is hard to be understood. ‘His merit consisted in giving a curve to
the ball the whole way. In itself it was not the first-rate style
of bowling, but so very deceptive that the chief end was frequently
attained. They who remember the dexterous manner with which the Indian
jugglers communicated the curve to the balls they spun round their
heads by a twist of the wrist or hand will at once comprehend Noah’s
curious feat in bowling.’ He once made a hit for ten at Windmill-down,
to which the club moved from the bleakness of Broadhalfpenny.
We have followed Nyren’s comments on bowlers for the purpose of
elucidating the evolution of their ingenious art. All the bowlers,
so far, have been under-hand, but now we hear of ‘these anointed
clod-stumpers’ the Walkers. They were not of Broadhalfpenny, but
joined the club at Windmill-down, when the move there was made on
the suggestion of the Duke of Dorset. ‘About a couple of years after
Walker had been with us’ (probably about 1790), ‘he began the system
of throwing instead of bowling, now so much the fashion.’ He was
no-balled, after a council of the Hambledon Club, called for the
purpose. This disposes of the priority of Mr. Willes (1807), and
incidentally casts doubt on the myth that a lady invented round-hand
bowling. Nyren says, ‘The first I recollect seeing _revive_ the custom
was Wills, a Sussex man.’
From the heresiarch, Tom Walker, we come to the classic model of a
bowler in the under-hand school--that excellent man, christian and
cricketer, David Harris.
It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to convey in writing an
accurate idea of the grand effect of Harris’s bowling; they only who
have played against him can fully appreciate it. His attitude, when
preparing for his run previously to delivering the ball, would have
made a beautiful study for the sculptor. Phidias would certainly have
taken him for a model. First of all, he stood erect like a soldier
at drill; then, with a graceful curve of the arm, he raised the ball
to his forehead, and drawing back his right foot, started off with
his left. The calm look and general air of the man were uncommonly
striking, and from this series of preparations he never deviated. I am
sure that from this simple account of his manner, all my countrymen
who were acquainted with his play will recall him to their minds. His
mode of delivering the ball was very singular. He would bring it from
under the arm by a twist, and nearly as high as his arm-pit, and with
this action _push_ it, as it were, from him. How it was that the balls
acquired the velocity they did by this mode of delivery, I never could
comprehend.
When first he joined the Hambledon Club, he was quite a raw
countryman at cricket, and had very little to recommend him but his
noble delivery. He was also very apt to give tosses. I have seen old
Nyren scratch his head, and say,--‘Harris would make the best bowler
in England if he did not toss.’ By continual practice, however, and
following the advice of the old Hambledon players, he became as steady
as could be wished; and in the prime of his playing very rarely
indeed gave a toss, although his balls were pitched the full length.
In bowling, he never stooped in the least in his delivery, but kept
himself upright all the time. His balls were very little beholden to
the ground when pitched; it was but a touch, and up again; and woe
be to the man who did not get in to block them, for they had such a
peculiar curl that they would grind his fingers against the bat; many
a time have I seen the blood drawn in this way from a batter who was
not up to the trick: old Tom Walker was the only exception--I have
before classed him among the bloodless animals.
Harris’s bowling was the finest of all tests for a hitter, and hence
the great beauty, as I observed before, of seeing Beldham in, with
this man against him; for unless a batter were of the very first
class, and accustomed to the first style of stopping, he could do
little or nothing with Harris. If the thing had been possible, I
should have liked to have seen such a player as Budd (fine hitter as
he was) standing against him. My own opinion is, that he could not
have stopped his balls, and this will be a criterion, by which those
who have seen some of that gentleman’s brilliant hits, may judge of
the extraordinary merit of this man’s bowling. He was considerably
faster than Lambert, and so superior in style and finish, that I can
draw no comparison between them. Lord Frederic Beauclerc has been
heard to say that Harris’s bowling was one of the grandest things of
the kind he had ever seen; but his lordship could not have known him
in his prime; he never saw him play till after he had had many fits of
the gout, and had become slow and feeble.
To Harris’s fine bowling I attribute the great improvement that
was made in hitting, and above all in stopping; for it was utterly
impossible to remain at the crease, when the ball was tossed to a fine
length; you were obliged to get in, or it would be about your hands,
or the handle of your bat; and every player knows where its next place
would be.
This long extract is not too long, for it contains a dignified study of
the bowler.
This is the perfect Trundler, this is he,
That every man who bowls should wish to be.
Harris was admired for ‘the sweetness of his disposition and his
manly contempt of every action that bore the character of meanness,’
and he chiefly bowled for catches, as did Lord Frederick Beauclerk.
Nyren is no great hand at orthography, and he soon comes to speak of a
Sussex bowler named Wells. This is apparently the Wills, or Willes, who
has more credit than perhaps he deserves for bringing in round-hand.
‘He was the first I had seen of the new school, after the Walkers
had attempted to introduce the system in the Hambledon Club.’ Willes
had a twist from leg, and Nyren thinks Freemantle showed astonishing
knowledge of the game because he went in front of his wicket and hit
Willes, and ‘although before the wicket, he would not have been out,
because the ball had been pitched at the outside of the stump.’ A man
might play hours on that system ‘by _Shrewsbury_ clock,’ but I doubt if
David Harris would have approved of Freemantle’s behaviour.
The student of the evolution of round-hand and over-hand bowling now
turns to the early exploits of William Lillywhite (_b._ June 13,
1792). Whatever Mr. Willes may have done, whatever Tom Walker may have
dreamed, William Lillywhite and Jem Broadbridge are practically the
parents of modern bowling. When Lillywhite came out, the law was that
in bowling the hand must be below the elbow. Following the example of
Mr. G. Knight, of the M.C.C., or rather going beyond it, Lillywhite
raised the hand _above_ the shoulder, though scarcely perceptible.
Lillywhite’s performances in 1827 caused much discussion among
cricketers and in the ‘Sporting Magazine.’ Letters on this subject are
reprinted by Mr. W. Denison, in ‘Sketches of the Players,’ London,
1846.[25]
The last great match of 1827 was between Sussex and Kent, with
Saunders and Searle given. Mr. Denison, reviewing the match at the
time, predicted that if round-hand were allowed, there would be no
driving and no cutting to point or slip. This of course is part of
Unfulfilled Prophecy. ‘Broadbridge and others will shew that they
cannot be faced on hard ground without the most imminent peril.’ As a
compromise, Mr. Denison was for allowing straight-armed bowling, ‘so
that the back of the hand be kept under when the ball is delivered.’
Mr. Steel’s chapter on bowling shows what the effect of that rule must
have been.
In February, 1828, Mr. Knight published his letters in defence of
round-hand bowling. There had been, in the origin of cricket, no law to
restrain the bowlers. About 1804, the batting acquired such mastery,
and forward play with running-in (as Nyren knew) became so vigorous,
that Willes and Tom Walker tried round-hand. This round-hand was
‘straight armed, and for a time (1818–28) did very well, till bowlers
took to raising the hand, even above the head.’ M.C.C. then proclaimed
an edict against all round-hand bowling. Mr. Knight proposed to admit
straight-armed bowling, which could not be called ‘throwing.’ To define
a throw was as hard then as now--a man knows it when he sees it; it is
like the trot in horses. Mr. Knight’s proposed law ran, ‘The ball shall
be bowled; if it be thrown or jerked, or if any part of the hand or arm
be _above_ the _shoulder_ at the time of delivery, the umpire shall
call _No Ball_.’
In one of the trial matches (Sept. 1827) it is said that Mr. Knight,
Broadbridge, and Lillywhite, all bowled high over the shoulder. There
are no wides in the score. When a man was caught, the bowler’s name was
not given. Lillywhite has thus no wicket to his name.
Mr. Knight’s law was discussed at Lord’s (May 19, 1828), and the word
_elbow_ substituted for _shoulder_. But Lillywhite and Broadbridge
bowled as before, and found many followers, till the M.C.C. passed
the law proposed by Mr. Knight. But the hand was soon raised, and the
extraordinary pace of Mr. Mynn (born 1807) was striven for by men who
had not his weight and strength. These excesses caused a re-enactment
of the over-the-shoulder law in 1845.
Lillywhite was now recognised as the reviver of cricket. His analysis
in 1844 and 1845 gives about 6⅞ runs for each wicket. Round-hand, with
a practical license for over-hand, was now established; but, as late as
1860, a high delivery was a rarity. The troublesome case of Willsher
ended in permitting any height of delivery, and the greatest of all
bowlers, Mr. Spofforth, sends in the ball from the utmost altitude.
This is a brief account of the evolution of round and over-hand
bowling. As to slow and fast bowling, Lord Frederick Beauclerk and
one of the Walkers were very slow bowlers in old days. William Clarke
(_b._ Dec. 24, 1798) was the classical slow bowler. Clarke was not a
regular lob bowler, but, like Lambert, delivered ‘about midway between
the height of the elbow and the strict under-hand, accompanied by a
singular peculiarity of action with the hand and wrist just as the
ball is about to be discharged.[26]’ He had a tremendous twist, and
great spin and ingenuity. Perhaps his success was partly due to the
rarity of slow bowling in his time. Men imitated Mr. Mynn, who was as
big a man as Mr. W. G. Grace, and a very fast bowler. In old underhand
times, Brett had a ‘steam-engine pace,’ and later, Browne of Brighton
was prodigiously fast. The Bishop of St. Andrews remembers seeing a
ball of Browne’s strike the stumps with such force and at such a point
that both bails flew _back_ as far as the bowler’s wicket. That was at
Brighton. He also remembers how at Lord’s, when Browne bowled, all the
field were placed _behind_ the wicket, or nearly so, that is at slip,
leg, and long-stop, till Ward went in, who, playing with an upright
bat, contrived to poke the ball to the off, and Browne himself (a tall,
heavy man) had to go after it. But this having happened more than
once, a single field was placed in front. Yet Beldham, as Mr. Pycroft
tells, quite mastered Browne, and made 76 off him in a match. Beldham
was then fifty-four. Browne’s pace was reckoned superior to that of
Mr. Osbaldeston. It is not easy to decide who has been the fastest of
fast bowlers. In our own day, I think that Mr. Cecil Boyle, when he
bowled for Oxford (1873), was the swiftest I have seen, except a bowler
unknown south of the Tweed, Mr. Barclay, now a clergyman in Canada. Mr.
Barclay was faster with under-hand than with round-hand. Beldham and
his comrades played Browne without pads; I have seen this tried against
Mr. Barclay--the results were damaging. Famous names of fast bowlers
are Mynn, Marcon, Fellowes, Tarrant, Jackson, Freeman, Hope Grant,
Powys, and Robert Lang.
The history of bowling precedes that of batting, because the batsman
must necessarily adapt his style to the bowling, not _vice versâ_. He
must also adapt it to the state of the wickets. There are times when
a purely rural style of play, a succession of ‘agrarian outrages,’ is
the best policy. Given an untrustworthy wicket, good bowling, fielding
ground in heavy grass, a stone wall on one side, and another wall,
with a nice flooded burn beyond, on another side, and a batsman will
be well advised if he lifts the ball over the boundaries and into the
brook. Perhaps Mr. Steel will recognise the conditions described, and
remember Dalbeattie. In the origin of cricket, when the stumps were
low, and the bat a crooked club, hitting hard, high, and often must
have been the rule. A strong man with good sight must have been the
pride of the village. When David Harris, Tom Walker, Lumpy, Brett, and
other heroes brought in accuracy, spin, twist, and pace, with taller
wickets to defend, this batting was elaborated by Beldham and Sueter
and others into an art. Tom Sueter, first, fathered the heresy of
leaving the crease, and going in to the pitch or half-volley.[27] Sir
Horace Mann’s bailiff, Aylward, was the Shrewsbury of an elder age. ‘He
once stayed in two whole days, and got the highest number of runs that
had ever been gained by any member--_one hundred and sixty-seven_.’ Tom
Walker was a great stick. Lord Frederick was bowling to him at Lord’s.
Every ball he dropped down just before his bat. Off went his lordship’s
white, broad-brimmed hat, dash upon the ground (his constant action
when disappointed), calling him at the same time ‘a confounded old
beast.’ ‘I doan’t care what ee zays,’ said Tom, whose conduct showed
a good deal more of courtesy and self-control than Lord Frederick’s.
Perhaps the master-bat of old times was William Beldham from Farnham.
He comes into Bentley’s ‘Cricket Scores’ as early as 1787. The
players called him ‘Silver Billy.’ He was coached by Harry Hall, the
gingerbread baker of Farnham. Hall’s great maxim was ‘the left elbow
well up.’
From Nyren I extract a description of Beldham’s batting:--
BELDHAM was quite a young man when he joined the Hambledon Club; and
even in that stage of his playing, I hardly ever saw a man with a
finer command of his bat; but, with the instruction and advice of
the old heads superadded, he rapidly attained to the extraordinary
accomplishment of being the finest player that has appeared within
the latitude of more than half a century. There can be no exception
against his batting, or the severity of his hitting. He would get
in at the balls, and hit them away in a gallant style; yet, in this
single feat, I think I have known him excelled; but when he could cut
them at the point of the bat, he was in his glory; and upon my life,
their speed was as the speed of thought. One of the most beautiful
sights that can be imagined, and which would have delighted an artist,
was to see him make himself up to hit a ball. It was the _beau idéal_
of grace, animation, and concentrated energy. In this peculiar
exhibition of elegance with vigour, the nearest approach to him I
think was Lord Frederick Beauclerc. Upon one occasion at Mary-le-bone,
I remember these two admirable batters being in together, and though
Beldham was then verging towards his climacteric, yet both were
excited to a competition, and the display of talent that was exhibited
between them that day was the most interesting sight of its kind I
ever witnessed. I should not forget, among his other excellencies, to
mention that Beldham was one of the best judges of a short run I ever
knew; add to which, that he possessed a generally good knowledge of
the game.
In 1838 Beldham used to gossip with Mr. Pycroft. That learned writer
gives Fennex great credit for introducing the modern style of forward
play about 1800; this on the evidence of Fennex himself (1760–1839).
But probably accurate bowling, with a fast rise, on fairly good
wickets, must have taught forward play naturally to Fennex, Lambert,
Fuller Pilch, and others. It is not my purpose to compile a minute
chronicle of cricket, to mark each match and catch, nor to chant the
illustrious deeds of all famous men. The great name of Mr. Ward has
been already mentioned. The Bishop of St. Andrews, when a Harrow
boy, played against Mr. Ward, and lowered his illustrious wicket for
three runs.[28] Thus, with Mr. Ward, we come within the memory of
living cricketers. Much more is this the case with Mr. Budd, Fuller
Pilch, Alfred Mynn, Hayward and Carpenter, Humphrey and Jupp. Mr. Mynn
was the son of a gentleman farmer at Bearstead, near Maidstone. His
extraordinary pace actually took wickets by storm; men were bowled
before they knew where they were. The assiduous diligence of Mr. Ward
was a match for him. When about to meet Mynn, he would practise with
the fastest of the ground bowlers at Lord’s, at eighteen or nineteen
yards’ rise, so to speak. Mr. Ward’s great reach also stood him in good
stead. Mr. Mynn’s pace, and the excesses committed by his imitators,
for some time demoralised batting. Few balls were straight (among the
_imitatores, servum pecus_), and men went in to hit what they could
reach. The joy of getting hold of a leg-ball from a very fast bowler,
or of driving him, overpowered caution, and these violent delights
might have had violent ends if accuracy had not returned to bowling. In
1843 Mr. Mynn’s analysis gave 5⅖ a wicket. His average was but 17 an
innings. Scores were shorter fifty years ago.[29]
My attempt has been to trace the streams of tendency in cricket rather
than to produce a chronicle--a work which would require a volume to
itself. Nothing has been said about fielding; because, however the ball
is bowled, and however hit, the tasks of catching it, stopping it, and
returning it with speed have always been the same. True, different
styles of batting and bowling require alterations in the position of
the fielders.[30] But the principles of their conduct and the nature
of their duty remain unaltered. One change may be noted. In ‘Juvenile
Sports,’ by Master Michel Angelo,[31] the author speaks of _byes_
and _overthrows_ as ‘a new mode,’ ‘an innovation with which I am by
no means pleased. It is indeed true that this places the seekers out
continually on their guard, and obliges them to be more mindful of
their play; but then it diminishes the credit of the player, in whose
hands the bat is, as a game may be won by a very bad batsman owing to
the inability of the wicket-man, or the inattention of the seekers-out.’
The fallacy of this argument does not need to be exposed.
* * * * *
M.C.C.
No sketch of the history of cricket would be complete without a note on
the fortunes of the Marylebone Club. This is the Parliament of cricket,
and includes almost all the amateurs of merit. There is nothing very
formal in its construction; and any clubs which please may doubtless
arrange among themselves to play _not_ according to M.C.C. rules. But
nobody so pleases; and Marylebone legislates practically for countries
that were not even known to exist when wickets were pitched at
Guildford in the reign of Henry VIII. Marylebone is the _Omphalos_, the
Delos of cricket.
The club may be said to have sprung from the ashes of the White
Conduit Club, dissolved in 1787. One Thomas Lord, by the aid of some
members of the older association, made a ground in the space which
is now Dorset Square. This was the first ‘Lord’s.’ As to Lord, he is
dubiously said (like the ancestors of Nyren) to have been a Scot and
a Jacobite, or mixed up, at least, in some way with the ’45. Lord was
obliged to move to North Bank, and finally, in 1814, to the present
ground. The famous Mr. Ward had played at Lord’s before this migration;
his first match here was in 1810, and he played, more or less, till
1847, being then sixty years of age. His bats are said to have weighed
four pounds. Mr. Ward bought the lease of the ground from Lord in 1825,
‘at a most exorbitant rate;’ and, in 1830, Dark bought the remainder of
the lease from him. The first match on our present Lord’s, or the first
recorded, was M.C.C. _v._ Hertfordshire, June 22, 1814. In 1825 the
pavilion was burned, after a Winchester and Harrow match. The burning
of the Alexandrian Library may be compared to the wholesale destruction
of cricket records on this melancholy occasion. In 1816 the Club
reviewed the Laws: the result will be found in Lillywhite’s ‘Scores,’
i. 385. ‘No more than two balls to be allowed at practice when a fresh
bowler takes the ball before he proceeds.’ A great deal too much time
is now wasted over these practice balls. ‘The ball must be delivered
underhanded, not thrown or jerked, with the hand below the elbow at the
time of delivering the ball.’ The umpire is to call ‘no ball,’ ‘if the
back of the hand be uppermost.’ As to l.b.w., the batter is out ‘if
with his foot or leg he stop the ball which the bowler, in the opinion
of the umpire, shall have pitched in a straight line to the wicket, and
would have hit it.’
The names of the Presidents are only on record after the fire.
Ponsonby, Grimston, Darnley, Coventry are among the most notable. The
renowned Mr. Aislabie was secretary till his death in 1842; in the
pavilion his bust commemorates him. Mr. Kynaston and Mr. Fitzgerald,
of ‘Jerks In from Short Leg,’ are other celebrated secretaries. In
1868 the Club purchased a lease of 99 years, at the cost of 11,000_l._
There have been recent additions to the area, and to that celebrated
monument, the pavilion.
[Illustration: The Royal Academy Club in Marylebone Fields. (After
Hayman, R.A. The property of the M.C.C.)]
Lord’s is, as all the world knows, the scene, not only of Club and
of Middlesex matches, but of Eton and Harrow, Oxford and Cambridge, and
Gentlemen and Players, which is also contested at the Oval. Winchester
used moreover to play Eton here, but the head-masters have long
preferred a home and home affair. In other chapters these great matches
will be chronicled and criticised.
* * * * *
The various epochs in the history of the game may now be briefly
enumerated by way of summary. First we have the prehistoric age, when
cricket was dimly struggling to evolve itself out of the rudimentary
forms of cat-and-dog, and stool-ball. This preceded 154-, when we find
an authentic mention of the name of CRICKET. Just about the end of
the seventeenth century it was mainly a boys’ game. With the Augustan
age it began to be taken up by statesmen, and satirised by that ideal
whippersnapper, the ingenious but in all respects unsportsmanlike, Mr.
Pope. By 1750 the game was matter of heavy bets, and scores began to
be recorded. The old Hambledon Club gave it dignity, and the veterans
endured till quite modern times dawn with Mr. Ward. Then came the
prosperous heresy of round-hand bowling, which battled for existence
till about 1845, when it became a recognised institution. The wandering
clubs, chiefly I. Z. and the Free Foresters at first, carried good
examples into the remoter gardens of our country. The migratory
professional teams, the United and All England Elevens at least, showed
the yokels what style meant, and taught them that Jackson and Tinley
were their masters. But the lesson lasted too long. Nothing was less
exhilarating than the spectacle of twenty provincial players, with
Hodgson and Slinn, making many duck’s eggs, and fielding in a mob.
‘The first ‘ad me on the knee, the next on the wrist, the next blacked
my eye, and the fourth bowled me,’ says the Pride of the Village, in
‘Punch,’ after enjoying ‘a hover from Jackson.’ Such violent delights
had violent ends. The old travelling elevens are extinct, but railways
have ‘turned large England to a little’ field, so to speak, and
clubs may now meet which of old scarcely knew each other by name.
The Australian elevens have in recent days given a great impulse to
patriotic exertions.
Scotch cricket is a thing of this century. Football and golf are the
native pastimes of my countrymen, as hurling is of Ireland. The Old
Grange Club is the M.C.C. of the North. The West of Scotland and
Drumpellier are other clubs of standing. That ever-flourishing veteran,
Major Dickens, still upholds the honour of Kelso. The Moncrieffs have
been the Wards and Budds of Edinburgh, nor will a touching patriotism
allow me here to omit the name of George Charles Hamilton Dunlop. For
some reasons Scotland has not been productive of bowlers. Professionals
are seldom reared there, nor have amateurs devoted themselves to the
more scientific and less popular part of the game. Mr. Barclay has
already been commemorated for his speed; a few only will remember Mr.
Sinclair and Mr. Glassford, who died young, and very much regretted.
Few men have done more for Scotch cricket than Mr. H. H. Almond,
head-master of Loretto School, which has contributed several players
to the Oxford eleven. An old ‘pewter’ may here congratulate Mr. Almond
on the energy with which he kept his boys to the mark, and on the
undaunted example which he set by always going in first. The names of
Arthur Cheyne, Jack Mackenzie, Edward Henderson, Chalmers, Hay Brown,
Leslie Balfour, and Tom Marshall are only a few that crowd on the
memory of the elderly Caledonian cricketer. In the Border district, of
which more hereafter, the houses of Buccleuch and Roxburgh have been
great friends of the game, and that was a proud day for ‘the Rough
Clan’ when Lord George Scott scored over 160 in the University match of
1887. Abbotsford, too, has been well to the front, thanks to the Hon.
J. Maxwell Scott, and, for some reason, Scotland has been occasionally
represented by Mr. A. G. Steel, and the Hon. Ivo Bligh, known to the
local press as ‘the Titled Batsman.’ But these are alien glories _et
non sua poma_.
Three things are prejudicial to Scotch cricket. First, there is the
climate, about which more words were superfluous. Next, boys leave
school earlier than in England, for professions or for college. Lastly,
the University ‘session’ is in the winter months, and the University
clubs are therefore at a great disadvantage. I shall never forget
the miraculous wickets we tried to pitch on the old College Green at
Glasgow, and the courage displayed by divinity students in standing up
to Mr. Barclay there. As for St. Andrews, golf is too much with us on
that friendly shore, and will brook no rival.
* *
* The author of the historical introduction is much indebted to
the Bishop of St. Andrews, a veteran of the first University Match,
for his kindness in revising proofs, and adding notes. He has also to
thank the Viscountess Wolseley for the loan of her picture of ‘Miss
Wicket’; and Mr. Charles Mills, M.P., for a sight of the silver ball
of the Vine Club. It was filled with snuff, and tossed from hand to
hand after dinner; he who dropped it being fined in claret, or some
other liquor.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Outside of England Mrs. Piozzi found ‘a game called _Pallamajo_,
something like our cricket.’ If she meant _Pallone_, she merely proved
herself no cricketer. Mr. Arthur Evans has noticed, in Dalmatia, a kind
of trap-bat, a ‘cat’ being used in place of a ball, and the length of
hits being measured by the stick that serves as bat.
[2] The learned have debated as to the origin of the local term ‘Dex.’
Let it suffice to say that it is not what they suppose.
[3] See M. de Charnay’s _Ancient Cities of the New World_, p. 96.
London, 1887.
[4] Strutt’s _Sports and Pastimes_, 1810, pp. 89, 90; cf. Durfey’s
_Pills to Purge Melancholy_, i. 91.
[5] _Popular Antiquities_, i. 153, _note_. London, 1813. The lines are
quoted by Brand from _A Pleasant Grove of New Fancies_, p. 74. London,
1657. He might have gone straight to Herrick, _Hesperides_ (1648), p.
280.
[6] Edinburgh, 1841.
[7] In married life, two are quite enough to play ‘cat and dog.’
[8] Compare _Loggat_. See _Hamlet_, v. 1, and _Nares’ Glossary_, s. v.
[9] Brand, ii. 287, quotes a reference to ‘cat and doug’ from the _Life
of the Scotch Rogue_. London, 1722. The Scotch Rogue says nothing about
cricket.
[10] P. 101.
[11] The miniature in which a woman bowls to a back-handed player
with no wicket is dated 1344. Bodl., 264. But the evidence of art is
never very trustworthy. The painter may have been a woman, or a monk,
or an uneducated person. Many of the pictures in modern books give a
misleading view of cricket.
[12] _Etymological Dictionary_, 1882. The writer here owes a great
deal to Dr. Murray, of the _English Dictionary_, who kindly lent him
the ‘slips’ (short, of course) on Cricket, as far as they have been
collected.--A. L.
[13] See M. Charles Deulin’s tale, ‘Le Grand Choleur,’ in _Contes du
Roi Gambrinus_. There is a good deal of information in _Germinal_, by
M. Zola. The balls are egg-shaped, and of boxwood. The game is a kind
of golf, played across country.
[14] Cotgrave’s _French Dictionary_, ‘Crosse,’ 1611.
[15] _Diary_, p. 159; May, 1676.
[16] i. p. 197. Letter xxi.
[17] The bibliography of the _Dunciad_ is not a subject to be rushed
into rashly, nor in a note; but this must have been written between
1726–1735, there or thereabouts. The Scholiasts recognise Lord John
Sackville as the Senator, and quote a familiar passage from Horace
Walpole (June 8, 1747) about _Cricketalia_, instituted in his honour.
We may, perhaps, regard Lord John as one of the early patrons of the
game.
[18] Gray’s _Works_, 1807, ii. p. 2. See also ‘urge the flying ball,’
which must refer, I think, to cricket. That ode was first published in
1747. Johnson carelessly paraphrases ‘drives the hoop, or _tosses_ the
ball!’--C. W.
[19] To George Montagu, May 6, 1726.
[20] See also his _Wiccamical Chaplet_, 1804, where there is an
excellent ‘Cricket Song’ (p. 131 to 133) for the Hambledon Club, Hants,
1767, in the course of which the following names of cricketers occur:
Nyren, Small, Buck, Curry, Hogsflesh, Barber Rich (‘whose swiftness in
bowling was never equalled yet’), ‘Little George, the longstop, and Tom
Suter, the Stumper,’ Sackville, Manns, Boyton, Lanns, Mincing, Miller,
Lumpy, Francis.--C. W.
[21] _The Cricketers Guide_, fourth edition, _s. a._, p. 58.
[22] The Bishop of St. Andrews can remember when the creases were cut,
before chalk was used.
[23] _Cricket_, An Heroic Poem, illustrated with the critical
observations of Scriblerus Maximus. By James Love, Comedian, London.
Printed for the Author, MDCCLXX. (Price, One Shilling.)
[24] Talking of appearances, there is just one story of a ghost at a
cricket match. He took great interest in the game, and went home in
a dog-cart as it seemed to the spectators, though he (the real man,
not the wraith) was on his death-bed at a considerable distance. The
spectral dog-cart is the puzzle of the Psychical Society. The scene of
the apparition was the cricket ground of a public school.
[25] The edition of Nyren’s _Cricketer’s Guide_, used here, is the
fourth, London, _s. a._ I owe it to Mr. Gerald Fitzgerald. Any
cricketer who has borrowed my own copy of the Editio Princeps will
oblige me by returning it.--A. L.
[26] _Sketches of the Players_, p. 23.
[27] Nyren, _op. cit._ p. 50.
[28] It was three or five--I forget which. I know it was the _lowest
score_ he had that year!--C. W.
[29] Was this so? The long scores caused the introduction of
round-hand bowling. From among my brother’s papers (late Bishop of
Lincoln) a letter has lately been returned to me which contains the
following:--‘Christ Church, Oxford: May 24, 1831.--Cricket, I suppose,
does not interest you; but you may like to know that in three following
innings, on three following days last week, I got 328 runs. Christ
Church has been playing--and beating--the University.’--C. W.
[30] My experience, in one respect, is, I suppose, unique. Hitting a
leg-ball, I alarmed the umpire, who turned round, and I was caught by
the wicket-keeper off his back! Naturally enough--but yet--justly? he
gave me out!--C. W.
[31] London, 1776, p. 76.