posted by John Winn
'The restriction of all county matches to two days strikes me as being a sad blunder.' Wisden 1919
'The decision to restrict all county matches to two days ....robbed the championship of much of its significance'. Wisden 1920
Of all the suggestions that followed England's recent 4/0 defeat in Australia none, as far as I know, suggested reducing the length of championship matches to two days as happened for just one season in 1919 when cricket resumed after World War 1. The two quotations above show that Wisden's misgivings about the change appear to have been borne out and that 'the disadvantages of the new scheme, more especially the long hours of play, soon became obvious, and before the season ended it was resolved to return in 1920 to the old order of things.'
To compensate for the reduction in the length of matches to two days the hours on the first day were 11:30 to 7:30 and on the second 11:00 to 7:30. Were members shortchanged by this? Not necessarily for in drawn match at Leyton Essex and Yorkshire got through over 266 overs . The other major change was to the points system which reverted to that used in 1910 so that Yorkshire topped the table with a percentage of wins to games played of 46.15%, 12 wins from 26 matches. Second were Kent who played only 14 matches, winning 6 yielding a % of 42.85. The champions played far and away more matches than any other side, Somerset and Northants played only twelve. It had not occurred to the organisers that any match might be tied and so the game between Somerset and Sussex which did end in a tie was declared a draw. Another curiosity of the season was that Worcestershire, for financial reasons, did not compete.
Wisden bemoaned the high number of drawn games for despite 'exceptionally dry weather' 56 out of the 124 matches including the Taunton tie were left drawn. But despite the many misgivings people had about the hastily arranged 1919 season it conjured up an exciting finish when the last round of matches were played at the end of August (sic). Yorkshire were at Hove, although Wisden insisted on calling the Sussex resort Brighton, while Kent were at Lord's. Both matches were rain affected, there was no play at Hove on the Saturday while at Lord's there was only an hour and a half's cricket during which Kent scored 97 for 2. So all was to play for on Monday August 31st. Kent failed to build on their good start and were dismissed for 196, JW Hearne taking 4 for 49. Middlesex replied with just 87, insufficient to avoid the follow on and with just fifteen minutes left they were still 23 runs adrift with only two wickets in hand. SH Saville boldly threw his bat, was dropped at square leg but in partnership with FT Mann safety was reached. Savile was then stumped and stumps were drawn.
Meanwhile at Hove Sussex and Yorkshire also produced some exciting cricket for the Monday crowd. Sussex having been 13 for 4 were all out for 100 and Yorkshire declared at 187 for 6, R Kilner 80 not out. This left them ten minutes under two hours to bowl out Sussex a second time. With two wickets down before double figures were reached they must have had hopes of a thirteenth win but Jupp and Wilson resisted and when rain washed out the last hour a draw was the outcome. One can only speculate if and how Kent and Yorkshire supporters followed that last day. One hundred years later they could have listened to the BBC's excellent commentaries or followed proceedings on smart phones and watches. In 1919 they would I guess have been entirely reliant on newspaper reports which of course they might not have been able to read until Tuesday morning.
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