. "", cricketing reminiscences and personal recollections. profound satisfaction. But a chaptermight be devoted to Mr. C. I. Thorntons leg-hits and scores against time. It is superfluousto say that he was the hardest hitter—he has sentballs out of the Oval on three sides of that giganticground—and the most speedy run-getter I ever sawin the cricket-field. A hundred runs an hour wasabout his noi^al pace. He stands quite alone asthe hitter of my time, and will never be excelled,even if he is equalled. Without pads—which hesaid interfered with his running—and withoutgloves, he fetfced the fas
. "", cricketing reminiscences and personal recollections. profound satisfaction. But a chaptermight be devoted to Mr. C. I. Thorntons leg-hits and scores against time. It is superfluousto say that he was the hardest hitter—he has sentballs out of the Oval on three sides of that giganticground—and the most speedy run-getter I ever sawin the cricket-field. A hundred runs an hour wasabout his noi^al pace. He stands quite alone asthe hitter of my time, and will never be excelled,even if he is equalled. Without pads—which hesaid interfered with his running—and withoutgloves, he fetfced the fastest bowling, apparentlywithout any fear of injury. Once he paid thepenalty for disregarding the precautionary bat-ting gloves by having a finger-nail ripped offby a ball from S. M. J. Woods, but even thenMr. Thornton seemed to care less about hisinjury than about the fact that the same balldisturbed his bails. The secret of Mr. Thorntonshittmg power was his eyesight and timing the ball correctly. Mr. Thornton has a rare collection of cricket 2 <. ° Z a. M ^% w QA <JO?< a• E Q. , o H A TELLER OF CRICKET STORIES 389 stories, and is very fond of telling them. One Imust quote though I figure in it, and the laugh isagainst me in the end : In 1888, I think it was (says Mr. Thornton),^ I managed to bag a brace against the Australianson a sticky wicket at Scarborough. That night,when dining at Londesborough Lodge, a bigparcel was brought into me. I at once smelt arat, as I was not expecting any parcel, particularlyas I saw old W. eagle eye fixed on , I didnt want to spoil the fun, and Iopened it. The parcel contained the biggest pairof specs, you ever saw, about a yard wide. I hadthree more by post next day. Well, this wasntall. We went to the circus after dinner, whereLord Londesborough used to take seats for all thepros, and their families, as well as for us. Whenthe clown appeared (^ Whimsical Walker byname) he was dressed up in an Eton blue cap, n
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