CHAPTER XIV
CRICKET IN SOUTH AFRICA
By P. F. Warner
On 3rd December 1898 I left England on my fifth tour abroad as a member of Lord Hawke’s South African team. The side was a powerful one, including such men as F. Mitchell, C. E. M. Wilson, the late F. W. Milligan, Trott, Tyldesley, Cuttell, Haigh, and Board.
After a delightful voyage in the Scot, we arrived at Cape Town, and during the next four months played cricket from Table Mountain almost to the Zambesi and back again, visiting Johannesburg, Pretoria, Kimberley, Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown, King William’s Town, Graaf Reinet, and Buluwayo.
Lord Hawke’s was the fourth English team to go to South Africa, Major Wharton, W. W. Read, and Lord Hawke himself having in previous years taken out sides.
In any review of South African cricket, the first thing to be remembered is that, from one end of the great continent to the other, you never by any possible chance see a grass wicket, matting being used everywhere. On the Newlands ground, Cape Town, and at Port Elizabeth, the matting is stretched over grass, and this makes a wicket which enables the bowler to get considerable work on, though the ball does not come off the pitch very quickly. It is not an easy wicket, for a half-volley does not seem the same thing as on grass, and forcing strokes generally are at a discount. This kind of wicket affords most excellent practice, for it teaches one above everything else to watch the ball.