Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/14

6 run-getting, and out of twenty-five matches played in August during the six years, 1922-7, nineteen were drawn. Eight of these were due to bloated scoring in fine weather and well may Strudwick say, as he has in his book (Twenty-five Years Behind the Stumps, p. xx), "when two good batting sides meet, it is generally a drawn game unless rain intervenes and play is abandoned."

It would seem from these figures that the time is not far distant when we shall, as a result of enormous run-getting and bad weather, sometimes separately, sometimes in combination, see about 50 per cent of first-class cricket matches end in draws, while an appreciable number will end in a victory for one side only because they will be played between say six of the strongest counties against six of the weakest. This is a real danger and is worth careful consideration before it is too late and the crash has come.

Cricket, as before said, is quite unlike any other ball game, and, played as it is, takes as many days to play as hours for any other ball game, and yet three days is not long enough to avoid draws, and this is not all. Constant drawn matches are a weariness of the flesh both to players and spectators, and though a match is not drawn till it is over it is often obvious that it is going to be a draw very early. I remember many games when at the end of the first day the side that went in first has not been got out, and the feeling that a draw is inevitable hangs over us like a wet blanket and the joy of a match is gone. "No day is good to me without blood," said that good sportsman Jorrocks, not even a good run, and so it is with cricket. No drawn match is good, and especially is this the case in fine weather, when all we