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are several essential elements in cricket as there are in all games, and when these essential elements are wanting it is time to take stock of our position, find out what is wrong, and if possible devise a remedy. Nobody who understands the game and is a sportsman can deny that the present state of things in cricket is intolerable, and the problem of how to make such changes as shall remedy this is in the minds of all who have any experience of the game. The first essential point which ought to be present in every game, and which is conspicuous by its absence in present-day cricket, is a decisive result to at least 80 per cent. of matches, and yet during the last few years it is, I believe, true that about 40 per cent., or nearly half the