Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/87

78 disquieting to find that in the English tours of 1911-12 and 1920-21 five days was the average number of days to finish a test match and six in 1924-25, and if the Australian wickets in the future are to be prepared in the way so graphically described by Mr. Trumble, I should not be surprised to find matches run to a fortnight. Already in 1926 a match between New South Wales and South Australia produced 1929 runs and ran into the ninth day.

In England the last Test match at the Oval in 1926 is the only match which up to date has been played to a finish and has taken more than three days. Only 1143 runs were scored, but the wicket was English in character, easy for the first two days, though not so easy as they are for the most part in Australia, but on the third day it was slow and dead for the first fifty minutes and afterwards for about an hour very difficult. It never was easy for the rest of the match and 1143 runs on such a wicket is a good guide to show that on fast and easy modern wickets, rungetting will be too large for three days to be sufficient to enable not only Test matches, but first-rate matches to be finished as often as in a healthy condition of things they should be. The acid test to show how cricket stands in this country being drawn matches, the large number of these is significant of the unsatisfactory state of the game.

The preparation of wickets reached a perfection in the 1890 period which was good enough as far as the welfare of the game was concerned, but since that date artificial treat­ment has come into fashion in England and Mr. Trumble has told us how Australian wickets are watered, rolled and topdressed so that natural grass is abolished and something like