Page:The Crisis in Cricket and the Leg Before Rule (1928).djvu/9



T has often been said, and said truly, that drawn matches are the curse of cricket. If this is the case the great game is in peril, as the number of drawn matches has been increasing and is still increasing, and if our authorities do not put our house in order, the greatest game in the world will fall. This statement may sound alarming, but there are ominous signs that all is not well, and the position should be recognized and faced and dealt with at once.

It cannot be too often pointed out that a draw at cricket stands on an altogether different footing from a draw in the other ball games. Cricket, football, tennis, rackets, golf, billiards, polo, fives, hockey and lawn tennis practically exhaust the list of ball games, and draws are impossible in all of them except in cricket, football, golf, polo and hockey. But in football, golf, polo and hockey, what are called drawn games are in reality tie matches, and altogether different from drawn games at cricket. In football, for instance, these tie matches, apart from luck which is common to all ball games, occur either when territorially neither side has any advantage over the other, or the shooting at goal is weak, or the defence too strong, and the fair result is a tie. In League football it is