Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/362

334 Mr. Mitchell once each; Mr. Yardley, however, was always got out in the end.

The earlier bowlers, as far as analysis is a guide, carry all before them. Not till the twentieth match, played in 1854—Mr. C. D. Marsham's first year—was any analysis kept. To judge, however, by the standard of wickets, Mr. G. E. Yonge of Oxford, who in four years obtained thirty-nine wickets, Mr. E, W. Blore and Mr. Sayres, both of Cambridge, who in the same time got thirty-two, are entitled to the highest place.

Naturally enough, as Mr. Marsham played five years and was also the best bowler on the whole that Oxford ever turned out, most wickets fell to his share. He got forty wickets at a cost of 361 runs— that is to say, of only 9 runs a wicket—a great performance under any circumstances. Two wides only were scored against Mr. Marsham, and there is no record of a 'no ball.' He bowled a strictly orthodox round-arm of fast medium pace, and generally round the wicket.

Mr. E. M. Kenney was a very fast and dangerous left-hand bowler, most terrifying to a nervous batsman, for he delivered that unpleasant sort of ball which pursues the batsman, and is apt, to adopt a pugilistic metaphor, to get in heavily on the ribs. During the three years that Mr. Makinson played for Cambridge he took twenty -one wickets at a cost of 194 runs, or just 9 runs a wicket; and when it is remembered that he was also distinctly the best bat in the two elevens each of the three years he played, it may be safely assumed that, as an all-round man, he has never had a superior, with the exception of Mr. A. G. Steel. At the same time it must be admitted that in bowling he was quite as successful against Oxford as his merits justified.

The famous Cambridge fast bowler, Mr. R. Lang, played three years and got fifteen wickets at a cost of only 84 runs, or a fraction over 5 runs per wicket—an analysis that has never been surpassed, and deserves to be quoted as an example for young players to emulate. In 1860 he bowled in the two innings twenty-one overs for 19 runs and six wickets. In 1861