Cricket

It has been always cast in the teeth of us Englishmen by our Continental critics that we take our amusements seriously—that our idea of recreation is to go forth and kill someth...

In the autumn of 1894 Mr. A. E. Stoddart, acting upon the invitation from the New South Wales and Victorian Cricket Association, sailed for Australia, with a side composed of th...

Without wishing to detract from the skill of the many famous batsmen of to-day, or venturing to compare them with players of a generation ago, it is probable that the former owe...

To thousands who have never been near the banks of the Cam or the Isis, “the ‘Varsity match” forms one of the episodes of each recurring year. It is a social festival; perhaps,...

To those that have time hanging all too heavily on their hands, and in good truth know not what to do—to those perchance that may, through lack of occupation, be compelled amid...

The rivalry between English and Australian cricketers, which has been productive in recent times of so many splendid matches, can now look back to its starting-point through qui...

It has been said that good batsmen are born and not made, but my experience is rather to the contrary. There are certain gifts of eye and hand which all really good batsmen must...

Cricket began when first a man-monkey, instead of catching a cocoanut thrown him playfully by a fellow-anthropoid, hit it away from him with a stick which he chanced to be holdi...

It has become almost an axiom of the game that more matches are lost by bad fielding than through any superexcellence of batting or bowling, and that this is really the case few...

Constant readers of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ will not have missed a most amusing article on “Yokels at Cricket,” which appeared over the initials “R. E. M.” during the summer of...

When I first formed the presumptuous design of editing this work, it was my original purpose to divide this chapter into two parts, whereof the one should treat of the developme...

I have not the least idea where my genial editor is going to put the present chapter in this book, but I am willing to wager that it will prove the lightest and most frivolous i...

It would not appear to be a difficult task to make a clear and accurate definition of the two common words found at the head of this chapter. Forty years ago the making of such...

In this and the following chapters I shall endeavour to give some account of the many cricket tours in which I have been fortunate enough to take part, in the West Indies, the U...

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....

Further trouble arises from the curse of gate-money. This hangs like a blight over everything. County clubs dare not take a decided line about cricket reform, lest a shortening...

It was on 12th November 1902 that I started from Liverpool as captain of a team for New Zealand. This was my sixth cricket tour abroad, and Lord Hawke was originally to have cap...