CRICKET.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16678, 10 October 1914, Page 13

CRICKET.

This past week of cricket (writes Mr Gilbert Jessop) has been big with fate, and now at last we can say, without too much risk of being wrong in our prophecy, that the championship is for Surrey. Brilliant victories over Kent and Yorkshire, and the defeat of Middlesex by the latter, have given Surrey a winning position in the championship table. They have won thirteen of the twenty-one matches they have played, and their percentage is 78.09. Middlesex, who comes second, have won nine out of seventeen games, and their percentage is 07.05 Third in the list comes Kent, who have won fourteen games out of a possible twenty-three, and who have a percentage of ob.oß. Surrey have still one or two hard and testing matches to plajh nut their ead is so big that they are little likely to be deprived of it, oven although their nearest rivals perform the most astonishing feats and have consistently good luck. , It is fifteen years since Surrey won the crickot championship, and it is interesting to note that of the men who were playing for the county hi the year of Surrey’s last champ.onship Hayward alone is still ieg - y engaged in first-class cricket-. a n magnificent side that was in 1899 tha„ gave Surrey the laurels of that; season. The very names conjure «P splendid memories of cricket, and are enough to prove that th y eno empty laurefs. In the fieW rey in 1899 were Robert Abel, Maur ce Read, N. F. I>ruce, the crack batsman of his epoch at t l u ’ , ' r oo i lV, e University; layward, W. Read, Brockwell, Wood and Richardson. ° n .? h ® Sl^s lona before saying that the piesent

Surrey side can be compared with that wonderful array of spoHsinanshin. 1 do not believe it would be possible to put any eleven in the field to-uay against those veterans, playing ns they played then, who would be prepared to lay even sight odds on themselves. Yet it is doubtful whether Surrey has ever had a better batsman than our present-day Hobbs, who during tho past month has done so much by jus wonderful prowess with the bat to give his county its leading position, this season Hobbs has played ten threefigure innings, and may vet wei beat the record held by his fellow-clubman, Hayward and Mr C. B. Fry of scoring thirteen centuricsa most unlucky number for the unfortunate bowWs. Last week Hobbs scored over 100 against Kent and over 200 against Yorkshire. He brought his aggregate, of runs for the season up to 2356, which is nearly 400 more than any other batsman has scored this season. C. P- Mead’s 1959 is the next best total. But J. W. Hearne still holds tho first place in the batting averages. As the result thirty-seven innings ho has scared 1733 runs and been seven times not_ out, which gives him an average of 59.43, and in the Middlesex match against Notts he scored 104 still further to improve his position. While Hobbs is undoubtedly the man who lias done most for Surrey, all his runs would not have enabled the county to win so many matches but for the magnificent bowling of Bitch. Tin) latter has not the consistency nor scarcely the brilliancy cf a R chardson, but on his day he is just as deadly, and up to date his “bag” comprises an assortment of 131 batsmen, whom he has dismissed at an average cost of 18i runs. This is a fine record for a bowler in what has been pre-eminent-ly a batsmen's season. Curiously enough, however, Blythe, the Kent slow left-hander, is at the top of the bowling averages, and bis total of 143 wickets is the best. Now that the Oval is in the hands of the military, and commandeered horses aro cropping tho grass whero Abel gloried and hit deep, and piles of baggage are stacked all round, Surrey are playing all their home matches at Lords, as I have already stated; but the change has proved no handicap. After their fine victory over Kent they performed just as notable things against Yorkshire. They hatted first and scored the huge total of 549 for s'x wickets. Hayward made 116, Hobbs 202, and Hayes 134. ITayes makes a hobby .of doing this sort of thing against Yorkshire. The wicket had changed little when the time came for Yorkshire to bat, but 1 lie fast bowling of Hitch upset them at the very start,, and, with Denton top scorer at 44, hey wore all out for 204. Of course they had to follow on, but, though the chanco of saving tho game was very slight, they fought with a typical pluck of the Tyltes, and managed this time to defy Hitch and the fates to the extent of scoring 315. But this made no difference to the result.

When the season began tho general notion was that Yorkshire had the best eleven of all tho counties. But although Hirst lias scored 1505 runs, and Rhodes, Denton and Wilson over 1000 each, there has been an inconsistency in the side that has proved their undoing. Judged by an AllEngland standard Rhodes has not done well, and had there been any representative matches it is doubtful whether lie would have been selected to play. Somehow lie has always given the impression of more or less struggling for his runs, and it is only since lie gave up going in first that he has met with any success at all. It is seventeen years ago since Rhodes first flayed for Yorkshire as a slow lefthand Ixfwler in succession to Bobby Peel. He was then twenty years old. He is now thirty-seven, and tliat shameless jilt, Mistress Anno Domini, no longer smiles upon him in the field. There will always be some regret that Rhodes ever began to develop his batting. For as soon ns ho began to get runs he ceased to take so many wickets. There is plenty of good cricket in Rhodes yet, and, curiously enough, this season, when he has been a little out of form as a batsman, he has bowled better than for some years. He was the second man'to secure his 100 wickets after scoring 1000 runs.