Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/85

76 so often as the bat, but still to a very appreciable extent, nearly as many off balls left alone as not, no driving of a ball, nothing in the shape of a cut, because batsmen were standing facing the bowler with the left shoulder pointing to short leg, and when a ball was hit to the boundary it was a pull or a hook, very effective, but coarse and vulgar, and lastly the atmosphere of a drawn match hanging over the game like a grim cloud. Small wonder that George Mere­dith found an hour of this sort of cricket more than enough for him and that he left the ground.

Some of us saw and certainly remember such matches as Cobden's and Ridley's in the University matches of 1870 and 1875, the Eton and Harrow historical struggle of 1910, Spofforth's Test match in 1882 at the Oval. Granting that these were exceptional, the fact remains that drawn matches were very rare when not caused by bad weather, and provided there is a definite result a first-class cricket match will always attract. But of late years a state of things has arisen in which a defeat is the one thing dreaded, and the match is played not so much with the object of defeating an opponent as of avoiding defeat for your own side. In county matches it is true there are points to be gained by a win on the first innings, but such matches are often dull and stodgy to watch, and of the type of those played between Lancashire and Yorkshire. In a Test match points are of no value, and here in England, when Australia and England oppose each other with equally matched sides, there is small prospect of a three day match being finished unless the weather makes weird wickets, and both sides gird up their loins for the final match which is played to a finish.