Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/74

Rh I believe, a relative of old Tom Hearne and might have heard from relatives some particulars of the Lords' wickets which W.G. had to play on. Old Tom Hearne played in a famous M.C.C. and Yorkshire match in 1870, and the Wisden of that day tells us how W.G. and others, including old Tom Hearne himself, got severe blows, but they were not knocked out, and there was some superb cricket and the batting of W.G. and C.E. Green was talked of or years. Nobody wants to see dangerous wickets, and I admit that modern batsmen standing as J. W. Hearne does, as shown in the illustrations, would have been hurt, and seriously so, if they had played George Freeman and Emmett in 1870. W.G. and C.E. Green got cut over on the left side, but they were not knocked out because they did not face the bowler, but stood with left shoulder forward, whereas J. W. Hearne in facing such bowlers as Freeman and Emmett would have been asking for trouble and might have been very seriously hurt. I doubt also if Hearne is correct when he says that top-dressing which I presume means marl, has been used for more than thirty years; if my information is correct, it has never been used at Lords at all, and have not runs enough been got at Lords? In this particular match between Notts and Middlesex, 920 runs were made for twenty-nine wickets, and this could hardly have been possible on a really dangerous wicket. Old W.G. played on Lords for more than thirty years and not a single wicket was artificially treated, and not once was he seriously hurt.

Batsmen have been spoon-fed by playing on lifeless wickets, such as Strudwick describes, which makes it safe