The wrong position for stopping the ball.
The various Australian elevens have earned great fame for their fielding in England, and it was no doubt very good. At the same time we think it was not so good as their batting, and certainly not so good as their bowling. The elevens of 1882 and 1884, which were the best, no doubt won their matches by all-round play; but if we had to name a weak point we should say that, as compared with the batting and bowling, it was their fielding, although this was very good. The Australians themselves say—at least, so we have heard—that the fielding in Australia of the Hon. Ivo Bligh’s eleven was never surpassed in the colony; and that must be high praise. Still, judging by what we know of that team, we think that we can point out higher standards in England. The finest fielding we have ever seen was that of the Players in 1887 in their annual match at Lord’s against the Gentlemen, and at the Oval it was nearly as good. But that was only for two matches. As is natural, University teams, from their youth and habit of playing together, have earned great fame as fielding elevens, and if we had to select four elevens whose fielding reputation ought to be inscribed on the highest pinnacles of fame, we should name the Cambridge representatives of 1861 and 1862 and the Oxford of 1874 and 1875.
The Cambridge celebrities of 1861 and 1862 have faded away into distance, and the present generation know not their names. Both those elevens had several fast bowlers in them, and one—Mr. R. Lang—was superlatively good. It was owing to this fact that Cambridge had to provide itself with a long-stop, and Mr. H. M. Marshall in that capacity has earned undying fame; for long-stopping on Lord’s Ground in 1861 and 1862 was no laughing matter. As general out-field Mr. Marshall also stood very high, and was a perfectly safe catch. Contemporary cricketers of that day are nearly unanimous in their praise of Mr. W. Bury as a fieldsman; at long-leg he has never been excelled. There were besides these the Hon. C. G. Lyttelton at point, and Mr. R. Lang at short-slip. ‘Bell’s Life’ of that date mentions as a fact that the fielding of Cambridge in the University match of 1862 was never equalled on Lord’s or any other ground. Those were the days when the bowling was mainly fast, the ground rough, and the cautious safe field who got stolidly and fixedly in a certain position was often defeated owing to the ball making unspeakable bounds. It required a touch of genius to be a grand field at Lord’s in those times, and several members of those two Cambridge elevens possessed it. The two Oxford elevens of 1874 and 1875 had each only one fast bowler, but they had magnificent fielding teams to support their slow bowlers. When the bowling is generally slow, amateur wicket-keepers can hold their own. This was the case in 1874 and 1875, and in Mr. H. G. Tylecote Oxford possessed a wicket-keeper fully up to the mark for the work he had to do. It used to be a bone of contention between Messrs. W. Law and A. W. Ridley, the captains respectively of ’74 and ’75, as to which of the two elevens was the greater in this particular line of fielding. Mr. Law, whose early death everyone who knew him deplores, contended that his eleven in 1874 made no mistake in the Inter-University match, whereas the 1875 eleven did. But the Cambridge batting in 1874 was fatuous to a degree, and the Oxford eleven had nothing to stop, whereas Cambridge in 1875 batted very well and kept their opponents hard at it. We are willing to give equal credit to each, and to enshrine the names of Law, Game, Ridley, T. B. Jones, and Royle in the temple of fame.
It is not easy to gauge the merits of the fieldsmen of forty years ago. Some of them have made their names live: Mr. T. A. Anson as wicket-keeper, Mr. R. T. King at point, and the famous W. Pickering at cover-point, for instance. But, though they had rougher ground to field on, still the scoring was nothing like so large, matches were not nearly so numerous, and the wear and tear far from being so great. The first thing that strikes one on reading over old scores and comparing them with those of the present day, is the enormous number of extras that were then given. Bowlers were, no doubt, faster, but they bowled many more wides. Taking one year at random, 1880, we find that for the whole season Yorkshire in all matches only bowled eight wides, five of which were delivered by the famous Tom Emmett, who is, no doubt, a slightly erratic bowler. In the days of Redgate and Mynn the wides were numerous, so were the no-balls, and frequently the extras contributed more to the total than any one batsman. If the bowling was fast and erratic, one cannot wonder that byes became numerous, especially when the rough ground is also considered. In the University match of 1841 Oxford gave Cambridge 56 extras out of a combined total of 223—a very large average. In 1887 Cambridge only gave Oxford 14 extras in a combined total of 461, and Oxford lost but three wickets in the second innings. In the same year Oxford gave Cambridge only 20 extras in a grand total of 459. Though bowling is generally slower now than forty years ago, still in former days they used to have long-stops to bowling that even amateur wicket-keepers would now stop. The long-stopping wicket-keeper—that is, the wicket-keeper that lets nothing pass him—is a marvellous testimony to the excellence of modern grounds, the accuracy of modern bowling, and the skill of the men themselves. The sight of Blackham, standing close up to the wicket, stopping Spofforth and Palmer would have made our forefathers look on aghast. In the well-known print of the Sussex and Kent match in 1840, old Lillywhite is bowling, and he was a slow medium-pace bowler; yet, though Tom Box was reckoned the best wicket-keeper of the day, he has a long-stop to Lillywhite’s bowling.
We may now try to enumerate the greater fields of cricket history. We read of the marvellous feat of Mr. T. A. Anson at the wicket, when he stumped a man off a leg-shooter of Alfred Mynn, one of the fastest bowlers of the period. We yield the place of honour to Mr. Anson for an individual feat, but it is alleged to have taken place a long time ago, and is it certain to be true? The greatest wicket-keepers since 1860 in England have been Lockyer, Pooley, Pilling, Pinder, Storer, Lilley, and D. Hunter; and we ask Plumb and Sherwin to forgive us. It is not easy to discriminate between these; we merely remark that to genuine slows of the pace of Southerton, Peate, and Tyler, we reckon Pooley to have been the best that ever lived; and to the very fast, Pinder and Storer were unequalled. Still Pooley was relatively not so good to fast, nor Pinder to slow; and, on the whole, they may be left on an equality. The best wicket-keepers of old days were Mr. Herbert Jenner, Mr. T. A. Anson, Mr. W. Ridding, and Mr. W. Nicholson among amateurs, and E. G. Wenman and Tom Box among professionals. The two best English amateur wicket-keepers that ever lived, in our opinion, are Mr. Alfred Lyttelton and Mr. McGregor, and besides them, since 1860, there have been Mr. Leatham, Mr. Bush, Mr. Newton, Mr. E. F. S. Tylecote, Mr. Philipson, Mr. Kemble, and Mr. Gay.
Perhaps a word would not be out of place here respecting Mr. Blackham, the celebrated Australian wicket-keeper. When the Colonial Eleven came over in 1878, 1880, 1882, and 1884, practically the whole of the wicket-keeping had to be done by Mr. Blackham. In 1880 and 1886 Mr. Jarvis assisted him. Now wicket-keeping is essentially an amusement you can have too much of. In old days, when there was a lot of fast bowling, the cream of the wicket-keeping used to be seen during the first six weeks of the season, because during that time the hands of the wicket-keeper were more or less sound. The famous George Pinder, at the beginning of his career, had faster bowling to keep to consistently than any other cricketer before or since. Freeman, Emmett, and Atkinson were three very fast bowlers, and they all three played for Yorkshire, and after them came Hill and Ulyett. Pinder in consequence very frequently damaged his hands, and no wonder. Blackham, however, during all the four years we have mentioned, had Spofforth and either Garratt or Palmer to stop. Now although these were not so fast as the Yorkshire lot, they bowled a goodish pace; the Australian season consisted of two matches a week from the beginning to the end of the cricket year, and Blackham did not get very many days off. When his record is examined, therefore, we think that his performances during these four years constitute the greatest wicket-keeping feats on record. Not unless Spofforth bowled his fastest did he ever have a long-stop, and he held his hands closer to the wicket than any other wicket-keeper we ever saw. If the batsman was an inch out of his ground for a second or so, the ball would be put down, and a stump-out resulted, for the hands had no distance to travel, and no time was lost. Of course the bowling he had to stop was very accurate, but when the amount of wicket-keeping that he had to go through and the number of wickets he got are considered, our opinion is that Mr. Blackham was the finest wicket-keeper to bowling of all paces that the world has ever seen.
There have been numerous fieldsmen at point who have made themselves a name, and by universal testimony, in his day, Mr. R. T. King, of Cambridge University, was not approached in excellence in this position. The late Mr. John Walker, who was intimately acquainted with cricket of that period as well as with that of a later date, once told the writer that in his opinion none of the modern points ever came quite up to Mr. King’s level. Since 1860 Carpenter, R. C. Tinley, E. M. Grace, and F. W. Wright have earned high reputations in this position, but a great many excel at point, and in the University match alone there has been some admirable fielding here; the Hon. J. W. Mansfield for Cambridge, and Mr. Hildyard for Oxford, both being very good. The place where good fielding is most conspicuous is midway between cover-point and mid-off, and with this post the name of Mr. G. B. Studd is for ever identified. In later days, Briggs, Moorhouse, Gregory the Australian, Mr. Andrews of Sussex, and Wainwright excel in this place. Mr. Royle at cover-point has never been excelled, and the same may be said of Gunn at third man. The celebrated fieldsmen of old were Mr. W. Pickering at cover-point; John Bickley and Mr. R. Lang at short-slip; Mr. E. S. E. Hartopp, Mr. H. M. Marshall, W. Pilch, A. Diver, W. Mortlock, and J. Thewlis at long-stop; while F. Bell, W. Bury, John Smith, and A. Lubbock were excellent at a distance from the wicket. There have been also, and are, many fields who were and are good at any place; for instance, the renowned Mr. V. E. Walker, and the still more famous Mr. W. G. Grace. We have said before, and we say it again, that the fielding, though probably as good as ever it was, is not so good as it ought to be. The nuisance of the day is the long scoring; we wonder how many innings of 100 are played where you do not read the well-known remark, ‘the batsman gave a chance at 24, another at 62, and a third just before he was out, but none the less he played a fine innings.’ The following brief epigram is undoubtedly true—‘Good fielding makes weak bowling strong and strong batsmen weak.’ An eleven that is really A1 in fielding very rarely has to field out for 300 runs. When we say this we feel inclined to go further and add that if no feasible catches are dropped this total of 300 runs would not be of anything but the rarest occurrence. This fact ought of itself to be sufficient to make every true cricketer try and become, if not a brilliant field, at any rate one who, when a catch is sent him, does not cause a thrill of agonising anxiety to arise in the minds of the supporters of the side to which he belongs.
An anxious moment.