Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/419

Rh and 36 runs. Mynn scored 46 in the last innings off 46 hits, which sounds strange, but then, as is recorded naively in the 'Scores and Biographies,' Mynn was always a great punisher.

Mr. Felix next challenged Mr. Mynn, and he must have been of a sanguine temperament to have done so; for, though perhaps a better bat than Mynn, he was a left-handed lob bowler, a delivery not suited for single-wicket matches. The first game Mynn won in one innings and 1 run, only 9 runs being made in the whole match. In Felix's second innings Mynn bowled 247 balls for 3 runs. Single-wicket matches had already begun to get out of favour; this was the most important that had taken place for some time, and Squire Osbaldeston was a spectator. In the return Mynn won by one wicket, and this was a small scoring match. Mynn now was left unchallenged, having won all the single-wicket matches in which he was engaged alone. In 1847 Wisden beat Sherman twice. Thomas Hunt of Chesterfield was a great single-wicket matchplayer, and beat Chatterton, Dakin, Charley Brown, and R. C. Tinley.

Single- wicket playing has been practically dead since 1850, though Hayward, Carpenter, and Tarrant played two matches about the year 1862. The subject possesses only an historical interest now, but in old times it created enormous excitement, and no doubt the pride of the men of Kent in Alfred Mynn was largely owing to his single-wicket prowess. If such matches were played on the smooth wickets of modern times, the fortunate man who won the toss might never be got out all day, and the game would become a burlesque on cricket. Eleven fieldsmen, and not one bowler merely, are now required to get out Mr. Grace and Shrewsbury, and but few wickets are bowled down as compared with the days of fast bowling and rough grounds. When the All England elevens used to tour about the country under the management first of William Clarke and then of George Parr, some of the best bowlers in England were to be found in their ranks. Jackson, Willsher, Furley, Tarrant, and others used often to play, and