Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/421

Rh Cotterill, Denzil Onslow, A. E. Bateman, and E. B. Fawcett, as formidable a quartet as could be desired. Mainly owing to the spinning slow bowling of Mr. H. M. Plowden, the Cantabs won by three wickets on a soaking ground, with two of the best Oxford men too unwell to play.

The next eighteen years can be regarded as the mid-Victorian section of University cricket. Preeminent from 1862 to 1865 was Mr. R. A. H. Mitchell, then absolutely the finest amateur bat in the country. He averaged 42 in seven innings against Cambridge, though his highest innings was only 57. He was a wonderful bat, timing the ball with something of the judgment of "W. G.," though, like the champion, he was never quite happy facing Alfred Shaw. Possibly no other amateur ever hit so well to leg, and he has the distinction of being the earliest of the great captains who developed the game according to our modern ideas. It was he, too, who gave Oxford four successive victories after four previous reverses. After he went down, Oxford had no star for some seasons, except that Sir Robert Reid proved as nimble behind the sticks as he has since been successful at the Bar and in Parliament.

Cambridge in the same period had more men of mark. At the outset there were the erratic but devastating deliveries of Mr. T. Lang, who captured in all fifteen Oxford wickets for 84 runs, and for his University has the magnificent figures of forty-six wickets at a cost of 5.54 apiece. Then too flourished Lord Cobham, of whom Mr. Clement Booth—a