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26 It appears that this degrading condition of cricket was brought to an end by its own excesses; it became a crying scandal. "Two very big rogues at Lord's fell a-quarrelling." They charged each other with all sorts of iniquities in the way of selling matches, all of which accusations, when compared with the records, squared so nicely with the truth that they carried conviction, and "opened the gentlemen's eyes too wide to close again to those practices."

Mr. Pycroft has a note on his own account about the match at Nottingham in which his informant confessed to him that he was paid to lose. There were men on the other side who were paid to lose too, but, perhaps because there were twenty-two of them, they could not do it, but won in their own despite.

It must have produced funny cricket, this selling of a match both ways, and Mr. Pycroft picked up a story of a single-wicket match in which both were playing to lose, where it was only by accident that a straight ball ever was bowled, but when it came it was always fatal. It reminds us of the much-discussed wides and no-balls bowled in the 'Varsity match to avert the follow-on: but, thank heaven, there is no suspicion of fraudulent financial motives in even the queerest of cricketing tactics to-day.

It is truly wonderful how all heavy betting has gone out. Partly, no doubt, this is because men play more in clubs. When individuals used to get up matches the players' expenses came very heavy; therefore they made the matches for a considerable