Eton Cricket 1917, by Michael Llewelyn Davies

[Nicholas]

All material appears by kind permission of Mrs Laura Duguid and the Provost and Fellows of Eton College.

Cricket 1917

At the beginning of this half there seemed every possibility of last year's performance in Junior cricket.  We had an abnormally promising series of batsmen, and our bowling was at least as good as that of last year's junior.  Our start was successful enough, but in our expectations we had not allowed for the ravages of disease.  First a loathsome wasting away of the throat, immediately pursued by the common or garden measle germ, brought us strangely near to capitulation.  The skipper, Boden by name, and four others scarcely less than he in power of limb and all sagacity, were called away in this untoward manner.  Thus it was, in their absence, that we were dragged from the pit into which we had fallen, by the not incredible exertions of the skimpier members of the side, and a few previous wet-bobs, and projected into the antefinal, to do battle with the minute but entirely all-there juniors of Wells' house.  To them needless to say, we gave up the well worn sponge. 
The juniors consisted of Borden, Gundry, Bright, Barber, Whitaker, Capper, Sheldon, Adam, Talbot, Barnett, Davies mi.  The fielding of this side, although very good indeed at nets, did not  shine in a crisis which is more important than anything else.

The house-eleven should have done pretty well, but was fairly simply defeated by Mr Cattley's in the second round, having drawn a bye in the first owing to the junior antefinal.  However as Mr Cattley's beat Mr Lubbock's and were defeated only by the winners, Mr Wells's, it might have been conceivably worse.  The fielding of this side was worse than that of the junior.
The house XI was as follows:
M.LL. Davies, Ed. Martin-Holland, R. Senhouse, H. Clutterbuck, J.M. Graham, T.W. Boden, H. B. Gundry, G. Bright, T.C. Barber, R.E. Whitaker, M.D. Sheldon
of whom Holland got his XXII, Davies ma his Lower Club, Boden his sixpenny as junior keeper early in the half, and Gundry his 6d.

Michael Llewelyn Davies 1917