The Cambridge celebrities of 1861 and 1862 have faded away into
distance, and the present generation know not their names. Both those
elevens had several fast bowlers in them, and one--Mr. R. Lang--was
superlatively good. It was owing to this fact that Cambridge had
to provide itself with a long-stop, and Mr. H. M. Marshall in that
capacity has earned undying fame; for long-stopping on Lord’s Ground in
1861 and 1862 was no laughing matter. As general out-field Mr. Marshall
also stood very high, and was a perfectly safe catch. Contemporary
cricketers of that day are nearly unanimous in their praise of Mr. W.
Bury as a fieldsman; at long-leg he has never been excelled. There
were besides these the Hon. C. G. Lyttelton at point, and Mr. R. Lang
at short-slip. ‘Bell’s Life’ of that date mentions as a fact that
the fielding of Cambridge in the University match of 1862 was never
equalled on Lord’s or any other ground. Those were the days when the
bowling was mainly fast, the ground rough, and the cautious safe field
who got stolidly and fixedly in a certain position was often defeated
owing to the ball making unspeakable bounds. It required a touch of
genius to be a grand field at Lord’s in those times, and several
members of those two Cambridge elevens possessed it. The two Oxford
elevens of 1874 and 1875 had each only one fast bowler, but they had
magnificent fielding teams to support their slow bowlers. When the
bowling is generally slow, amateur wicket-keepers can hold their own.
This was the case in 1874 and 1875, and in Mr. H. G. Tylecote Oxford
possessed a wicket-keeper fully up to the mark for the work he had to
do. It used to be a bone of contention between Messrs. W. Law and A.
W. Ridley, the captains respectively of ’74 and ’75, as to which of
the two elevens was the greater in this particular line of fielding.
Mr. Law, whose early death everyone who knew him deplores, contended
that his eleven in 1874 made no mistake in the Inter-University match,
whereas the 1875 eleven did. But the Cambridge batting in 1874 was
fatuous to a degree, and the Oxford eleven had nothing to stop, whereas
Cambridge in 1875 batted very well and kept their opponents hard at it.
We are willing to give equal credit to each, and to enshrine the names
of Law, Game, Ridley, T. B. Jones, and Royle in the temple of fame.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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