Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/13

Rh. In 1927 there was such a lot of rain that we are apt to forget that for the first seven weeks the weather though cold was dry, and wickets easy for batting. During this period, out of one hundred and fifteen matches, seventy were finished, forty-five drawn, and in the case of forty-two of these the draw was due to huge run-getting. This is far too large a number of draws to be considered healthy, but taken by itself does not show how bad the position is. A large proportion of the matches that ended with a definite result were played between unequally matched elevens, like those between the six leading counties, Lancashire, Notts, etc., against Worcestershire, Somerset and Northamptonshire, and other counties making up the last six. I have closely examined the matches played in this dry period of seven weeks, and about twenty-two resembled matches between the first and second elevens of a school, and victories such as these are nearly a third of the total sum of seventy matches that ended in decisive results.

There are some matches that apparently can hardly be expected to be anything but drawn. The time-honoured games between Gentlemen and Players at Lords, which, in some shape or other, have been played for more than a century, seems to be one of them. In the last six matches only one finished with a victory, and of the five drawn games three were due entirely to unhealthy scoring and two to large scoring combined with bad weather. The last six Gentlemen and Players matches at Scarborough have all been drawn, four due to a glut of runs, one to rain, and one to glut of runs combined with rain. The Oval is no doubt one of the easiest grounds in England for