Wisden
August 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th (1874)

The Canterbury week

THE CANTERBURY CRICKET WEEK of 1873 was favoured with a bright, breezy, warm, enjoyable BANK HOLIDAY to commence with on the Monday; a brilliantly fine LADIES' DAY on the Thursday; a burning hot and glorious corn-ripening sun on the Friday, and fairly pleasant weather on the other days.

The clerical, staid, quiet, quaint old City of the Men of Kent was, from Monday morn until Saturday eve, dressed up in an unwonted gay form, the whole length of the antiente High Street being ablaze with flags: scarce a house in that long, narrow, and historically interesting thoroughfare but what had its bits of bunting blowing in the breeze, and at about every two score yards or so a string of flags of all colours streamed across the street. The Union Jack; the rampant White Horse of Kent; the famous old buff and blue of politics; the gorgeous red, black, and gold of I Zingari; the sombre black and blue of Kent's Band of Brothers; the scarlet and black of The Knickerbocker's; the ever popular red and gold of M. C. C.; the dark blue of Oxford; the light blue of Cambridge; the blue and yellow of the R. A.; and lots of other banners crowdedly covered the house fronts in the High Street, and as the strong wind fluttered them they seemed to cheerily wave welcomes to all comers to THE CANTERBURY WEEK OF 1873.

The attendance up at breezy old St. Lawrence was unprecedentedly large on the Monday; very good on the Tuesday; middling ditto on the Wednesday; numerically large beyond all preceding Ladies' Day on the Thursday; but slack on the Friday and on the Saturday.

The wickets were-thanks to the exertions of Mr. Ladd and his men-in quite top class form, and as good wickets are one of the essentialities of good cricket, there was good cricket; albeit constant attendants at past year's weeks fancied they had seen better, especially when they remembered the cricket of '68, which poor Fuller Pilch pronounced to have been the best he had ever seen played at Canterbury.

As to run getting in 1873 there was plenty of that, as the six day's hitting averaged 319 runs per day, and over 20 runs per wicket. The week's cricket was started with the match-

NORTH v. SOUTH.

Two strong cricketing elevens represented the two divisions of England, but inasmuch as Daft, Lockwood (ill), and Martin McIntyre were out of the North team, and the South had not the aid of Mr. Ottaway, or of a first-class wicket-keeper, it could not be said either side played their full strength. On magnificently true wickets the North commenced the batting at two minutes to one, and when the dinner bell rang at 2.30 they had lost Wyld's, Emmett's, and Greenwood"s wickets, the score at 82 ; Mr. Mitchell not out 19, and Oscroft not out 16. On resuming play the score was made 93, when Jupp stumped Oscroft for 21, and at 117 he also stumped Mr. Mitchell for 33, and Lillywhite bowled Mr. Appleby ; then Carpenter and Pinder stayed and hit so well for the North, that despite the bowling of Southerton, Lillywhite, and the two Graces, they put on 67 runs when Carpenter was l b w for 31: an innings that included six 4's-cuts and leg hits of nearly the old form. Pinder did not leave until 224 runs had been scored, and he had made 78 by some spanking drives and square leg hits-one on drive sending the ball high over a tree. Alfred Shaw made 39; and when a capital catch-low down-at point by Mr. W. Grace had settled Mr. Tennent the innings was up at 5 minutes to 6 for 270 runs. The wickets having fallen as follows :-

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It was 12 minutes to 6 when Mr. W. Grace and Jupp commenced the first innings of the South; they had slowly made the score 42 when both batsmen were at one wicket (Jupp never moved), and one of the easiest chances possible of running out Mr. Grace was literally thrown away by Pinder, who threw the ball far too high over the bowler's (J. C. Shaw) head for J.C. to handle, so Mr Grace comfortably regained


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