Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/48

28 present ground. The famous Mr. Ward had played at Lord's before this migration; his first match here was in 1810, and he played, more or less, till 1847, being then sixty years of age. His bats are said to have weighed four pounds. Mr. Ward bought the lease of the ground from Lord in 1825, 'at a most exorbitant rate;' and, in 1830, Dark bought the remainder of the lease from him. The first match on our present Lord's, or the first recorded, was M.C.C. v. Hertfordshire, June 22, 1814. In 1825 the pavilion was burned, after a Winchester and Harrow match. The burning of the Alexandrian Library may be compared to the wholesale destruction of cricket records on this melancholy occasion. In 1816 the Club reviewed the Laws: the result will be found in Lillywhite's 'Scores,' i. 385. 'No more than two balls to be allowed at practice when a fresh bowler takes the ball before he proceeds.' A great deal too much time is now wasted over these practice balls. 'The ball must be delivered underhanded, not thrown or jerked, with the hand below the elbow at the time of delivering the ball.' The umpire is to call 'no ball,' 'if the back of the hand be uppermost.' As to l.b.w., the batter is out 'if with his foot or leg he stop the ball which the bowler, in the opinion of the umpire, shall have pitched in a straight line to the wicket, and would have hit it.'

The names of the Presidents are only on record after the fire. Ponsonby, Grimston, Darnley, Coventry are among the most notable. The renowned Mr. Aislabie was secretary till his death in 1842; in the pavilion his bust commemorates him. Mr. Kynaston and Mr. Fitzgerald, of 'Jerks In from Short Leg,' are other celebrated secretaries. In 1868 the Club purchased a lease of 99 years, at the cost of 11,000l. There have been recent additions to the area, and to that celebrated monument, the pavilion.

Lord's is, as all the world knows, the scene, not only of Club and of Middlesex matches, but of Eton and Harrow, Oxford and Cambridge, and Gentlemen and Players, which is also contested at the Oval. Winchester used moreover to play