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Evening Star, Issue 17764, 12 September 1921, Page 4

End of the Tour.

The Australians have wound up their

victorious campaign in England with a sensational defeat at the hands

of as good an eleven as any they met in any of the five test matches. Thornton’s Eleven secured their win by a narrow margin in respect both of the score-sheet and the clock. Had this been the first match lost by the Australians, regret at the dimming of the record in the last match of the tour would have been acute; but, as it happened, a team, described as an “eleven of scratch amateurs,” had lowered the tourists’ colors a few matches previously. Yet, despite the two defeats, the record of the 1921 Australian Eleven will stand as better than that of the best of their predecessors. For one thing, Armstrong's men won the rubber and did not lose a teat match. But the greatness of the record by no means proves this eleven to be tho strongest which Australia has ever sent to England. We do not hold it to be so, though undoubtedly it has proved itself a splendid, evenly balanced, and strong combination, most ably led. Probably, after two seasons’ cricket on end, tho men are “ stale ”; but in some part that is their selectors’ fault, for in important matches fine players like Ryder and’Mayne had to stay in the pavilion as spectators while some of their colleagues, who could have done with a spell, were overworked. Tire man tho like of whom English critics lamented England’s non-possession of was the Victorian fast bowler M’Donald, for he added length and spin to pace. With Hobbs away through illness, England could not show as sound a batsman as Bardslev nor so brilliant a one as Macartney. The indomitable Douglas was perhaps as good an all-round man as Armstrong ; but the latter might have been regarded as unchallengeable had not his batting value been seriously discounted by his remarkable propensity for putting his leg in front of his wicket. Though there have been little unpleasantnesses now and again during the tour, there can be no doubt about English cricket having benefited by it, nor that English cricketers find themselves with a better conceit of themselves in September than they did in June and July.