Page:Cricket, by WG Grace.djvu/113

 other counties were full of promising talent also, the prospects of professional players looked very rosy. University and public school cricket were in full swing also, and the number of first-class amateur batsmen was rapidly increasing.

At the end of 1865 County Cricket showed that Nottinghamshire and Surrey were at the head of the poll.

In purely county matches Surrey won 7, lost 3, and 2 were drawn; Nottinghamshire won 6, lost 1; Middlesex won 3, lost 1, and i was drawn; Kent won 2, lost 3, and 2 were drawn; Sussex won 1, lost 4, and 2 were drawn; Cambridgeshire won 1, lost 1, and 1 was drawn; Yorkshire won 0, lost 6, and 2 were drawn. Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, and Warwickshire played against each other with varying results.

Nottinghamshire's performance was a very fine one; four wins being ridiculously easy, especially that against Sussex at Trent Bridge, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd June, which was won by an innings and 86 runs. Parr and Daft batted consistently for their county all that season; the former doing specially good work with the bat, considering that he was now in his fortieth year, and had represented Nottinghamshire for 21 years. Then they had such good bowlers as Grundy, Wootton, Jackson, Alfred Shaw, and Tinley. Grundy was very successful on that occasion, the Sussex batsmen being perfectly helpless against him. In the second innings he bowled 100 balls, took 5 wickets, and only 6 runs were scored off him. The one match lost was the return against Surrey at the Oval on the 13th, 14th, and 1I5th July, and there was a tremendous amount ot excitement and feeling over it. Parr declined to play, which did not make matters pleasant to begin with; and rarely have two counties fought so keenly as those two did on that occasion. Surrey in the second innings