Empire Cricket Booklet

ORE THAN A GAME

he was overjoyed when he 'almost ran into the arms of Frank Mitchell'. The latter, who would four years later be his skipper on a South African tour to England, 'knew me at once although I was in a shockingly dilapidated condition'. 32 One match that was played during the war was considered to be of sufficient interest to forward the details to the MCC. Colonel Scott-Harden recalled in his letter: You might like to have some particulars of a cricket match which was played at Chieveley in the Christmas of 1899. The battle of Colenso was fought on December 15 that year, and a fortnight later the South African Light Horse

Cricket encounters might be regarded amongst the 'civilised moments in a war of considerable brutality'. The legend ary Jimmy Sinclair remembered squeezing in about ten days' cricket in the year leading up to South Africa's 1901 tour to England, including a match against Jagersfontein in the Orange Free State on 'a cruel pitch, which we made as best we could with spades - of course we had no matting. You could make the ball go over long-stop's head quite easily ... Where on earth the bats and ball and the wickets came from I don't know, but there they were.' He also recalled meeting numerous cricketers on the field of battle - 'sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other'. After he had been captured by the Boers and then made a dramatic escape at Rustenburg, followed by 'a day or two' on the move,

:IIU 15, 1901.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

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Along with the British government and public, the satirical weekly, Punch, underestimated Boer resistance in the guerrilla phase of the South African War

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