Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/274

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186
CRICKET

county club was formed in 1839 on Brown's ground, the said Brown being the famous fast bowler, who is said to have bowled through a coat, and to have killed a dog on the other side! But the builder was inexorable in Brighton, and the county was hustled from place to place, till it settled finally—it is hoped—in its present splendid ground at Hove, which is, however, save in the comfort of its appointment, not one whit better for cricket purposes than the Brunswick ground, which the county used between 1847 and 1871. In modern times the names of great Sussex bowlers are few, Southerton playing but rarely, and the others being Tate, the brothers Hide, Parris, and Walter Humphreys, the "Lobster." The earlier names include those of several Lillywhites, Wisden, Brown, and Dean, while of wicketkeepers we may quote those of Box and Ellis, Harry Phillips, and Harry Butt. One is almost bewildered by the dazzling list of great batsmen who have represented Sussex—C. G. Taylor, Wisden, J. M. Cotterill, L. Winslow, R. T. Ellis, W. Newham, G. Brann, F. M. Lucas, Bean, Killick, and Marlow, to say nothing of the great Anglo-Australian player, W. L. Murdoch, who settled in Sussex and was at once invited to captain the eleven. But great as these names are, the names of C. B. Fry and K. S. Ranjitsinhji are perhaps even greater. They are household words at present, as are their wonderful feats with the bat, which—as the tale is not yet complete—may be left to be chronicled by posterity. At the present day, were the Sussex bowling in any