Page:Cricket (Hutchinson, 1903).djvu/310

214 beyond all knowledge in wicket-keeping, and there is not much to choose now. In other respects also the quality seems tolerably equal. The observer will undoubtedly notice a change in the figure of the ordinary professional now. The old Yorkshire eleven, with the well-known figures of Roger Iddison, Luke Greenwood, and Rowbotham, and the Nottingham eleven with Bignall and Wild, seem quite out of date now, though Hirst looks promising in this respect. But Gunn, Maurice Read, Tyldesley, Wainwright, Hirst, Braund, and several others were and are fully equal in fielding to any that the amateurs can bring to compare with them.

It would appear, then, that in batting and fielding there is little to choose between amateurs and professionals, but in bowling there is great superiority among the professionals. Of course this superiority, cœteris paribus, is so important that as long as it exists the professional must win the vast majority of matches. As a general rule this has been the case, but when Mr. Grace was in his prime, that is, between 1869 and about 1887, his tremendous skill gave the amateurs the predominance that, as far as appearances go, does not look likely to occur again.

Some good judges of the game have maintained that the common practice, which has prevailed for some time, of engaging professional bowlers to bowl to boys at school and undergraduates at the universities, and to the amateurs generally belonging to clubs, is a bad one, and that amateur inferiority in bowling is to be traced to this custom.