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222 make the wickets unlike what they have been for the last ten years.

I would ask any fair-minded, impartial observer of the game whether he has seen more than two or three real scientific exhibitions of batting played on wickets favouring the bowlers.

I saw a few weeks ago a match played between the counties of Surrey and Essex, where the wicket was difficult, but where the bowling on both sides was not—with the exception of Mead's for Essex and Lockwood's for Surrey—of a sort that could not indeed have been played by really good batsmen. Yet in the whole match there were only two innings of over fifty played, and it cannot be said that one of those, viz. Abel's, was of a very high class. Of Abel's innings it may be said that it did show one very remarkable capacity, and this capacity Abel shares with another great Surrey batsman of a past generation, viz. Jupp.

Abel, like Jupp, has the being able to run half-way to short-leg and yet hit the ball with a very crooked bat. In the particular match I am referring to, Abel did this to perfection, but how he can do it, I confess is a mystery