CRICKET

Northern Advocate, 12 June 1926, Page 11

CRICKET

THE AUSTRALIAN ELEVEN PROGRAMME OF MATCHES. RESULTS TO DATE. May I.—Leicestershire, at Leicester. Match Drawn; play interfered with by rain. Australia 336; Leicester 96 and 1 for 15. In the 1921 tour Australia won by an innings and 152 runs —Australia declaring with 7 wickets for 430; Leicester 13G and 142. May s.—Essex, at Leyton. Match drawn, abandoned owing to rain. Australia declared with 9 out for 535, Essex, 2 for 7. (1921 —Australia won by an innings and 75 runs. Australia BIS; Essex 144 and 99.) May S.—v. Surrey, at the Oval. Match drawn, interfered with by rain. Australia declared with 9 out for 355; second innings, 2 wickets for 74. Surrey 265. (1921 —Australia won by an innings and 55 runs. Australia declared with 9 out for 357; Surrey 79 and 223.) May 12.—Hampshire, at Southampton. Australia won by 10 wickets. Hampshire 152 and 248. Australia 371 and 33 for no wickets. (1921 — Match drawn., Australia declared with 7 out for 708, the highest score of the tour. Hampshire 370 and 135 for 5 wickets.) May 15.—M.C.C., at Lords. Match drawn. M.C.C. 199 and 83 for 5 wickets. Australia declared with 9 out for 383. (1921 —Australia won by 3 wickets. M.C.C. 284 and 176. Australia 191 and 271 for 7 wickets.) May 19. —Cambridge University, at Cambridge. Match drawn. Cambridge 212 and I 81. Australia 245 and 17 for 2 wickets. (1921 —Australia won by an innings and 14 runs., Cambridge 220 and 128. Australia 362 p

May 22.—Oxford University, at Ox ford. *

Australia won by an innings and 13 runs. Oxford 131 and 177. Australia 321. (1921 —Drawn. Oxford 180 and 174 for 1 wicket. Australia 294.)

i May 26.—South of England, at Bristol. I Match drawn, abandoned owing to rain. South of England 211. Australia 328 for 6 wickets. (1921. —Australia won by an innings and 46 runs. Australia 444. South of England 199 and 199). May 29. —Middlesex, at Lords.

Match dr ami. Australia 489 and 239 for 5 ■wickets. Middlesex 349. (1921 —Australia won by 8 wickets. Middlesex 111 and 90. Australia 171 and 32 for 2 wickets.)

June 2.—North of England, at Birmingham.

Match drawn, delayed through rain. North of England 239 and 77 for .1 w’icket (declared). Australia 105 and 110 for 3 wickets. (No match was played against North of England in 1921).

June 5. —Yorkshire, at Bradford. Match drawn, abandoned owing to rain. Australia 177 and 3 for 243 (deelarod). Yorkshire 155 and 25 for 0 wickets. (1921 —Drawn. Australia 263 and 77 for 3 wickets. Yorkshire 224)'.

EEMAINING MATCHES. *June 9.—Durham, at Sunderland. June 12.—First Test, against England, at Trent Bridge, Nottingham June 16.—Yorkshire, at Sheffield. June 19. —Lancashire, at Manchester. *June 23. —Derbyshire, at Chesterfield. June 26.—Second Tost, against England, at Lords. June 30. —Northants, at Northampton. July i. —Notts, at Nottingham. *July‘ 7. —Worcestershire, at Worcester. July 10.—Third Test, ’ against England, at Leeds. July 14. —Lancashire, at Liverpool. *July 17.—West of Scotland, at Glasgow. July 20,—Scotland, at Edinburgh. July 24.—Fourth Test, against England, at Manchester. July 28.—Surrey, at the Oval. July 31.—Glamorgan, at Cardiff. August 4.—Warwickshire, at Birmingham. August 7.—Gloucestershire, at Cheltenham. *August 11.—Public Schools, at Lords. August 14. —Fifth Test, against England, at the Oval. * August 18.—Leveson Gower’s XI, at Maidenhead. August 21.—Somerset, at Taunton. August 25.—Kent, at Canterbury. August 28. —Sussex, at Brighton. September 1. —An England XI, at Folkestone. September 4. —Civil Service Association, at Chiswick. September B.—C. I. Thornton’s XI, at Scarborough. September 11. —North of England, at Blackpool. ■ Two-day matches.

THE FIRST TEST

COMMENCES TODAY. All eyes in the cricket world will bo focussed upon the historic Trent Bridge ground at Nottingham today and for the first two days of next week, where the first tost of the present series is to be fought out between Australia and England. This will bo the fourth occasion upon which a test match has been played on the Trent . Bridge ground, and honours arc easy. The first, played in 1899, resulted in a draw; the second, in 1905, England won by 213 runs; the third was played during the last tour of England, in 1921, when Australia, won by 10 wicj kets, and was the first of that series. The teams and scores on the last occasion were:—England won the toss and batted on an easy wicket, but were all disposed of for 112 runs. Knight made 8, Holmes 30, E. Tyldesley 0, Hendren 0, Douglas (captain) 11, Woolley 0, Jupp 8, Rhodes IP, Struct - wick 0, Richmond 4, Howell not out 6; extras 12. Gregory took 6 for 58, McDonald 3 for 42, Armstrong 1 for 0. Australia replied with 232—Collins T 7, Bardsley 66, Macartney 20, Taylor 4, Armstrong 11, Gregory 14, Pcllew 25, Andrews 6, Carter 33, Hendry not out 12, McDonald .10; extras 14. Howell took 0 for 22, Douglas 2 for 34, Richmond 2 for 69, Woolley 3 for 46, Jupp 1 for 14, Rhodes 2 for 33. England, second innings, 147—Holmes 7, Knight 38, Tyldesley 7, Hendren 7, Douglas 13. Woolley 34, Jupp 15, Rhodes I 10, fitrudwick 0, Howell not out 4, j Richmond 2; extras 10. Gregory took | 3 for 45, McDonald 4 for 32, Macartney ) 0 for 10, Armstrong 0 for 33, Hendry j 2 for 18. 1 Australia, second innings, 0 for 30 — 1 Macartney 22, Bardsley 8. j Altogether 109 test matches have i I been played, Australia having assumed J the load in the match at Nottingham ( lin 1921, each side having up till then 40 wins to their credit, the remaining 19 having been drawn. Australia bas now 47 wins to England’s 41, and 21 have been drawn. Each country has the best record when the matches have been played on their own home grounds. In Australia 62 matches have been decided, of which Australia won 36, England 24, and 2 were drawn. In England 47 matches have been played, England having been victorious in 17, Australia 11, whilst ID have been drawn.

It will be seen that Hendren, Woolley and Strudwick (with possibly Holmes) are the only players to represent England in today’s match who were engaged in the- 1921 contest. Australia will probably have -Collins, Bardsley, Macartney, Taylor, Gregory, and Andrews playing today who were also in the team in 1981.

England’s eleven for today’s match is a much more powerful team than that which represented the Mother Country in the corresponding match of 1921. Hobbs, Chapman, Carr, Ilendren, Sutcliffe, Woolley, and Hearno are all great batsmen, while Kilncr, Tate and Boot can make runs. Strudwick, the wicket-keeper, is not a batsman. Tate, Boot, Kilner, Woolley and Hearne are a fine lot of bowlers.

It is exceedingly doubtful whether the Australians are as great an allround combination as the 1921 team. McDonald and Armstrong are the men who mil be missed at the- bowling crease, while Hendry is also unavailable because of illness. • Arthur Bichardson and Mailoy or Grimmctt (hut most probably Mailey) will need to bo in great form to successfully replace McDonald and Armstrong, while Byder will no doubt take up Hendry’s mantle for this match. The Australian bonders thus should be Gregory, Eichardson, Macartney, Mailey, Byder, with Collins as an emergency bowler. .All these

arc fine batsmen with the exception of Mailcy (who has many times, however, proved useful) and to those have to bo added Woodful], Ponsford, Andrews, Taylor, Bardsley and Oldfield. It seems quite likely that Bardsley will be the man omitted from this lot.

DEATH OF F. R. SPOFFORTH

WORLD’S GREATEST BOWLER, j 0 j. The death occurred in England on y Friday last of Frederick Robert Spof--1 forth, the “demon bowler,” who has been almost universally acclaimed as tl the world’s greatest bowler of all 0 • time. He was born in Balmain (Syd- £ ney)—and not in tbo Holdanga disf trict as was claimed by a speaker at a recent meeting in Whangaroi—and , ! played all his first-class cricket for ■j Australia, but bad resided in England 1 for the past 35 years. At flic time of , iiis death Spofforth was almost 73 * years of ago. At the conclusion of the hundredth, test match played 'at Nottingham in 5 1921 (referred to above) Spofforth t presented each Australian player with a gold medal inscribed: —“England v. r Australia, hundredth test, won by Australia. May, 1921. From F. R. Spofforth.” Each medal was also inI scribed wilb the name of the player, j .Spofforth was a member of the first | Australian team to visit England in j • 1878, when he secured 108 wickets-at j ■ an average of 11.10 runs. Ho visited j ■ Eu gin ml with the four subsequent i ; teams, in 1880, 1882, 1884 and 1886, J and in all test matches between Eng- i ■ land and Australia ho captured 94 . wickets at an average of 18.41 runs. During his career he put up many sensational bowling performances, and | for years was the back-bone of tbo • Australian attack. On the, Melbourne I ground in 1879 be performed the j “hat trick” in a test match, taking ! j the wickets of V. F. Roylo, F. A. Mc- , Kinnon and T. Emmett with succesj sivo balls. On three separate occaj sions Spofforth captured 10 or more j wickets in a test match—l 4 for 90 at Kcnningtoii Oval (Surrey) in 1882; j 13 for 110 at Melbourne in 1879; and J 11 for 117 at 'Sydney in 1883.