Page:Cricket, by WG Grace.djvu/318

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310
CRICKET.

if you had been cut with a knife or a piece of the skin had been snipped off. The first time I met him was in the South v. North match at Sheffield in 1869, when I had just completed my twenty-first year, and was batting in my best form. In the first innings I made 122 out of a total of 169, and Freeman was the only bowler who gave me trouble; in the second innings he beat me with a shooter, and after the ball hit the wicket it kept spinning for a few seconds between the stumps, and then lay perfectly dead at the bottom of them.

As a bat he was a fine hitter, and scored largely at times, as witness his 123 for Malton v. All-England Eleven in 1868, against Tarrant, Tinley, J. C. Shaw and Alfred Shaw. Owing to pressure of business, he played very little first-class cricket after 1872. I sometimes think if a bowler of the quality of Freeman were to appear to-day, he would astonish the majority of good batsmen who think it a first-rate performance to keep up their wickets against medium-pace bowlers because they can break a little both ways. Freeman was a good fieldsman as well, and a real good fellow also. His best bowling years were:

Overs. Maidens. Runs. Wickets. Average.
1867 564 310 553 66 8.25
1868 392 197 454 46 9.40
1869 540 300 577 50 11.27
1870 433 216 417 55 7.32
1871 255 122 331 29 11.12

Mr. Thomas William Garrett was born at Wollongong, near Sydney, New South Wales, on the 26th July, 1858. His height is 5 ft. 11 ins.; weight, 12 st. He came to England with the first Australian Eleven, and was very successful as a bowler. He bowls right-hand, fast round-arm, mostly over the wicket, and has a beautifully easy action. The ball