Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/213



is a strange fact connected with cricket that a good captain is but seldom met with. The game has made such progress in popularity during the last thirty years, and the numbers of those who are proficient in its different branches have increased so enormously, that we should certainly expect to find in our county and other important matches captains who thoroughly understand the duties they are called upon to fulfil. But on looking round we are disappointed to find that the good captains in first-class (including of course county) cricket are extremely few, and these few are amateurs The