Having gone very far toward destroying Sussex' hopes of winning the Championship Lancashire might make amends by continuing the rune making process at Sheffield in the match which begins to-day. Like the match between Surrey and Notting-hampshire at the Oval the annual meeting of the Roses at August bank holiday-time is one of the cricket events of the year. Sussex have no reason to fear that Yorkshire will receive any tender treatment. In this match no quarter is given. Moreover this is the return game of the Whitsun fixture and Lancashire have to wipe out an unpleasant defeat by 10 wickets on the Old Trafford ground. They will be heartened by the evidence that Paynter is at the moment in splendid form. He has entered the ranks of the batsmen whom Wisden immortalizes because of their having. in a single innings, made "300 or more." Paynter's 322° and H. H. Moore's 316* constitute 1937's additions to that list.
Hammond with 317 against Notts in 1936, Ashdown with 305* against Derbyshire in 1935 made the two previous additions and curiously enough in 1934, the last year, until the present one, to see more than one treble century in an English season. Ashdown and Hammond were the home-grown contributors, the third being Don Bradman, and the scores, 332 against Essex, 802* against Glamorgan, and 304 against England (at Leeds) respectively. Paynter's triumph also recalls the fact that in the Whitsun match against Yorkshire he carried off the honours by a 5% hours' defiance of the bowling to the tune of 86, an innings which deserved fully to save the game, as it should have done had it received proper support, Yorkshire will certainly be out for blood at Sheffield, for a win would put them in an almost unassailable position in the race for the Championship. They will then have six matches left, against Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Glamorganshire, Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire, the first three at home and the last three away.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.