Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/16

8 1925, 1926 and 1927 deserve attention because they show what cricket is coming to when both elevens are at the top of the ladder and tension is high, not only among the players, but even more so among the crowd. Both matches in 1925 were drawn and not for one moment did any other result seem possible, for 1354 runs were scored in the two games at an average rate of scoring of about 47 runs per hour and 26 per wicket. In 1926, at Manchester, 19 wickets fell for 861 runs in three full days' cricket, and according to Wisden the whole match resolved itself into a struggle for first innings' points from the start. The match at Bradford was won by Yorkshire. In 1927 Lancashire won at Manchester and there was another draw at Leeds. In the three years only two of the six matches were finished and the rate of scoring must have been about 48 runs per hour. As a rule the Lancashire and Yorkshire wickets are not so easy as the Southern, and well may Strudwick say about cricket at the Oval, "When two good batting sides meet it is generally a drawn game unless rain intervenes and play is abandoned." This remark of Strudwick is true of nearly every ground where first-class cricket is played, and a more unsatisfactory state of things cannot exist.