MR. EUGENE STRATTON AS A BATSMAN.
After lunch the Eccentrics took the field, and the Dulwich men went to the wickets.
Hereafter it was cricket extraordinary, and no funnier burlesque was ever seen upon the stage. The bowlers were not bowlers, but they were excellent mimics. They knew it was the correct thing to stroll away from the wicket and back again before a delivery. They walked a quarter of a mile or so to the boundary each time, and returned at 20 miles an hour in the most approved style, launching the ball at a terrific pace. The very first ball was at least ten yards wide, but somebody called, "How's that?" "Out!" said the umpire, and "Out" it had to be. The batsman looked blankly from one to the other. He was too stupefied to protest. Had he done so it would not have helped matters. He had been given "out," and out he had to go. The Danites threw the ball madly skyward. They careered against each, rolled in one indistinguishable mass on the grass, and yelled till they were hoarse. The crack player of the opposition eleven gone—out without a run! The next ball missed the wickets, but it clean bowled the fat man, and he rolled along the grass like a wind-driven hat.
When twenty or thirty balls had been sent up by the boundary-walking trundlers somebody called "Over," and the Danites quadrilled gracefully over the pitch. This little manœuvre occurred at every over.
The next Dulwich man was knocked out in a peculiar and novel way. He did not touch the ball at all, but the fat wicket-keeper ran in and caught it from the bowler's hands. Then he threw it in the air. "How's that?" he cried. "Out!" cried Dan Leno, neatly catching it in his top hat. The batsman laughed, and the spectators joined him. "How's that?" asked Captain Leno of the umpire. "Out," responded the latter. The batsman walked sadly from the wickets. He thought he must have been standing without the crease, and had been stumped without noticing it.
So brilliant was the play of the Danites that the other team by one means or another were got out for an "estimated" total of 25 runs.
HOW MR. LENO WENT "OUT."
It was admirable fooling all the time, and it says much for the "stars" of the music hall that they are willing to give their services so freely in the cause of charity.