FEATS OF FAMOUS BATSMEN

Evening Star, Issue 17542, 23 December 1920, Page 10

FEATS OF FAMOUS BATSMEN

HARD HITTING EXTRAORDINARY. When W. Fellowes once drove a ball a distance of 175 yds on Christ Church ground, Oxford, he performed a feat which has defied all rivalry for a couple of generations. And yet there have "been many mighty sraiters since Fellowes squared liis herculean shoulders for that terrific hit. If any man could have beaten it he was surely George Bonnor, tho Australian giant, with the shoulders of an ox and six and a-half feet of stature. And yet Bonnor,. who could make twentyruns off a single over, never beat the 160 yds drive lie made Melbourne .early in his career. George Ulyett, “the pride of Yorkshire,” was a hitter almost as powerful as Bonnor; yet he never came within 20vds of Fellowes’s record, although on one "occasion he drove a ball clean out of the Bramall Lane ground, over a couple of streets, and into an upper room of a house. 5 Hitch, Surrey’s fast bowler, performed an equally astonishing feat when he skied a ball out of the Oval into a neighboring garden; and Albert Trott, among a hundred breath-taking hits, sent one ball over (he pavilion at Lord’s, and hit the clock with another. But neither Hitch nor Trott ever drove a ball more than ISOvds. FIFE W/CKETS IN AN OVER'/ Gilbert Jessop thrilled hundreds of thousands by his hurricane hitting. He once scored a century in forty minutes: m a ’Varsity match he ran up fortv-t.wo runs in eighteen minutes; and on another occasion he knocked up thirty-nine in a quarter of an hour. Once he sent three consecutive balls into various houses outside Twickenham Green, one of them living over the green, tho road, and a large garden, and crashing through a cottage window. But even Jessop never came within yards of Fellowes’s feat. Fellowes’s most formidable riqal was C. I. Thornton. Almost incredible tales are told of some of his feats; as when, to quote W. G. Grace, “ he once sent a ’ball sky-high, which went straight out of the ground (at Scarborough), over a high block of houses, and dropped into Trafalgar square.” A second ball passed through a window on the second floor of a distant house. And even these astonishing drives were eclipsed by one which he sent out of the Hove ground and down an adjacent road to a distance of 168 yds from the wicket.

Once, when playing for the Gentlemen of England against 1. Zingari, he ran up a score of 107 in tw’enty-nine strokes; and on another occasion he made thirty-four runs off nine consecutive balls. “He was,” says Mr P. F. Warmer, “ such a terror to bowlers that Southerton used to lie awake at nights, wondering what would happen if Thornton hit one back at him.” Many bowling feats are at least as astonishing, as when J. W. H. T. Douglas, in a match between- Esses and Yorkshire took five wickets in eight balls, and when J. C. Shaw took ten All England wickets in one innings for an average of two runs apiece. Tom Emmett, Spofforth, and many other bowlers have performed feats almost as amazing; but not one of them rivalled the feat of Mr A. Wright, who, in a goodclass match, once captured five wickets in his first over. Mold once dismissed Lohmann in a Lancashire v. Surrey match with a hall which sent the bails flying a distance of 63iyds,