Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/104

Rh good enough for the batting. Any reform of cricket law has for its object a levelling up of attack and defence—in other words, of batting and bowling. It must be an advantage to any game to possess this equality, whether played in England or Australia, and furthermore I feel convinced that Australians themselves will ultimately prefer matches to be finished in three days. We must look to the future; in Australia the number of cricketers will increase, more matches will be played, and though their season is far longer than ours, time may possibly become more an object than it is now.

There is another reason: we are far too dependent on gate-money: but still, if only for the sake of old cricketers who love the game as well as for the general public, cricket ought and must be an interesting, or in other words, an elegant and picturesque game to watch. The Australian system of playing matches to a finish must tend to produce a dull, sticky, monotonous style of batting. I fully admit the graceful freedom of Trumper and the bold attractive style of Worrall, but generally speaking the batting style of the Australian