Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/449

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UNIVERSITY CRICKET
331

getter and also a most useful wicket-keeper. Mr. F. Mitchell, despite a remarkable start, did not in his University cricket display the form which culminated in his great batting of 1901. Mr. T. N. Perkins was a notably punishing bat, but the great Cambridge weakness lay in the miserable quality of the attack. Oxford in this respect was not much stronger, though Mr. G. F. H. Berkeley in his day was above the average. At this period, which coincides with that when one of the present writers heartily enjoyed his own University career, there were some distinguished bats to be added to those noticed above. Prominent, of course, was Mr. C. B. Fry, in those days a much slower run-getter than when he amassed those six consecutive centuries for Sussex. Mr. R. C. N. Palairet was often a formidable scorer, and when he and his brother went in first for Oxford v. Cambridge in 1893, it was for the first time since 1878 that two brothers had done so for the senior University; it had then been the two Webbes. Cambridge furnishes only one such incident, the case of Messrs. G. B. and J. E. K. Studd in 1882. Mr. G. J. Mordaunt was a capital bat and an absolutely beautiful field in the country, the amount of ground he covered and his rapidity m returning the ball being quite extraordinary. To these must be added that attractive bat, Mr. H. K. Foster, with his graceful strokes, some of them learnt in the racquet-court. At least one prominent judge maintains that his forlorn effort of 121 on fourth hands in 1895 was the superb gem of the whole series