Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/432

400

enthusiast on behalf of any game or sport is sometimes a little apt to argue that the game in which he delights is a perfect one, that nothing ought to be reformed, and that any change must be for the worst.

We yield to nobody in our enthusiasm for the game of cricket, but we are certainly in favour of judicious reform in the laws which govern the game; and we can scarcely help supposing that the opponents of all change are either oblivious of the enormous alteration that has taken place in cricket in consequence of the improvement of grounds, or else their attention is principally devoted to batting, and this causes them to think a little too much of the joys of hitting. No doubt they revel in the hot days, perfect wickets, and loose bowling that bring about the supremacy of batting.

We feel confident that our younger critics fail to recognise the gigantic change that has taken place simply on account of the invention of the mowing-machine alone. That is only one of the many causes of the superiority and billiard-table aspect of modern grounds, as compared with the same grounds in former days. The champion operator with the old-fashioned scythe was bound to leave some long blades of grass, and anybody can see the difference between a lawn mown by the scythe and the lawn shaved close by a machine. It is this machine, and the knowledge that comes from experience of