Flashman had a highly personal approach to cricket, as to most things, but there can be no doubt that through his usual cynicism there shines a genuine love of the game. This is not surprising, since it is perhaps the subtlest and most refined outdoor sport ever devised, riddled with craft and gamesmanship, and affording endless scope to a character such as his. Also, he played it well, according to his own account and that of Thomas Hughes, who may be relied on, since he was not prone to exaggerate anything to Flashman’s credit. Indeed, if he had not been so fully occupied by military and other pursuits, Flashman might well have won a place in cricket history as a truly great fast bowler – the dismissal of such a trio as Felix, Pilch, and Mynn (the early Victorian equivalents of Hobbs, Bradman, and Keith Miller) argues a talent far above the ordinary.
How reliable a guide he is to the cricket of his day may be judged from reference to the works listed at the end of this appendix. His recollection of Lord’s in its first golden age is precise, as are his brief portraits of the giants of his day – the huge and formidable Mynn, the elegant Felix, and the great all-rounder Pilch (although most contemporaries show Pilch as being a good deal more genial than Flashman found him). His technical references to the game are sound, although he has a tendency to mix the jargon of his playing days with that of sixty years later, when he was writing – thus he talks not of batsmen, but of “batters”, which is correct 1840s usage, as are shiver, trimmer, twister, and shooter (all descriptive of bowling); at the same time he refers indiscriminately to both “hand” and “innings”, which mean the same thing, although the former is long obsolete, and he commits one curious lapse of memory by referring to “the ropes” at Lord’s in 1842; in fact, boundaries were not introduced until later, and in Flashman’s time all scores had to be run for.
Undoubtedly the most interesting of his cricket recollections is his description of his single-wicket match with Solomon; this form of the game was popular in his day, but later suffered a decline, although attempts have been made to revive it recently. The rules are to be found in Charles Box’s The English Game of Cricket (1877), but these varied according to preference; there might be any number of players, from one to six, on either side, but if there were fewer than five it was customary to prohibit scoring or dismissals behind the line of the wicket. Betting on such games was widespread, and helped to bring them into disrepute. However, it should be remembered that the kind of wagering indulged in by Flashman, Solomon, and Daedalus Tighe was common in their time; heavy, eccentric, and occasionally crooked it undoubtedly was, but it was part and parcel of a rough and colourful sporting era in which even a clergyman might make a handsome income in cricket side-bets, when games could be played by candlelight, and enthusiasts still recalled such occasions as the Greenwich Pensioners’ match in which spectators thronged to see a team of one-legged men play a side who were one-armed. (The one-legged team won, by 103 runs; five wooden legs were broken during the game.) Indeed, we may echo Flashman: cricket is not what it was. (See Box; W. W. Read’s Annals of Cricket, 1896; Eric Parker’s The History of Cricket, Lonsdale Library (with Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane’s description of Lord’s in “Lord’s and the MCC”); W. Denison’s Sketches of the Players, 1888; Nicholas (“Felix”) Wanostrocht’s Felix on the Bat, 1845; and the Rev. J. Pycroft’s Oxford Memories, 1886.)