Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/150

Rh the side that has won the toss gets 280 runs, and dismisses the other eleven for 130, by luncheon time on the second day. The eleven with this advantage of 150 runs has now the power of going in again. It does so when the wicket is fast and good, and hitting away for some five or six hours finds itself at luncheon time on the third day 500 runs ahead. Of course under these circumstances the weaker side is in a hopeless position, and can only avert defeat by sticking, and playing the dullest of games, so that the last two hours' play is probably burlesque. What the effect of this rule may be it is impossible to say, but one objection I have to it is that the advantage of winning the toss is great enough in all conscience as it is; to give the side that is 150 runs ahead the option of making its opponents follow on will increase this advantage to a still greater extent, and whether this is right or wrong seems doubtful.

When we who are now middle-aged first played, thirty-five years ago, we had to run out our hits whether they were singles or fourers. Now for the last twenty years there are boundaries,