Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/433

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
UNIVERSITY CRICKET
319

seen J. T. Hearne pitch ball after ball with mechanical precision at Lord's can realise how Mr. C. T. Studd used to bowl, only slower. His batting was never perhaps so sound as that of Mr. C. B. Fry, but that is the nearest contemporary type; only the style of Mr. Studd was one absolutely satisfactory to witness. The game sustained a national loss when he left it to undertake missionary labour in Asia. Mr. J. E. K. Studd, who came into the Cambridge eleven a year later, thus establishing a record of three brothers all simultaneously playing for their University, was never so good as either of the others, but he was a hardworking cricketer, and a difficult bat to dislodge, while his punishing powers were of no mean order.

In 1881 both teams were powerful, the public opinion that Cambridge were far the stronger being quite properly reversed. Three innings of the match were moderate, principally because the Cantabs all drew away from the fast bowling of Mr. A. H. Evans, who claimed thirteen wickets for 10 runs apiece. But the grandest feature was the innings of 107 by Mr. W. H. Patterson, who carried his bat clean through the second Oxford innings, although suffering from a badly-injured hand. It was one of the greatest innings ever played at Lord's, and foreshadowed the fine service he subsequently rendered to Kent. That brilliant disappointment, Mr. C. F. H. Leslie, whose phenomenal batting at Rugby evoked anticipations never realised, played a splendid innings of 70, his partnership with the old Harrovian arresting the succession of Cantab victories, which were