Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/77



R. J. W. TRUMBLE of Australia was an excellent all-round cricketer, both in England and Australia, and was chosen for the Australian touring side here in 1886, and is brother of the great Hugh Trumble, in his day one of the world's greatest bowlers. Mr. Trumble was in England in 1926 and wrote two most valuable and interesting letters in The Times which ought to be studied carefully by all lovers of cricket. In his first letter, Mr. Trumble, after giving his opinion that present-day bowlers are not so formidable as they were, adds that the reason for this "Is mainly because wickets as now prepared beat them." And in his opinion, "The great bats of the past would have had a very rosy time of it on present-day wickets." He mentions how top-dressing and the heavy roller are responsible for the unsatisfactory condition into which the game has fallen. This is in reference to cricket in England, but Mr. Trumble adds, "The position in Australia is worse still . . . In former days cricket was bright and interesting, now it is not. A wicket is now prepared after a preliminary nursing, by twelve days' hard work, and becomes polished concrete blocks . . . nothing can be done till the old-time turf wicket is restored."

So writes Mr. Trumble in his first letter to The Times,