The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1886.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 7928, 3 August 1886, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1886 .

The Australian Eleven in England is now well past the middle of its career. It has done neither better nor worse than wais expected. Though twice beaten by the full strength of England, it has, usually speaking, escaped defeat at the hands of any less powerful eleven. Two of its other three defeats, for its beatings number five altogether, were received at the very outset of its career, and when struggling under some very adverse circumstances. Its collapse before the men of Surrey is a remarkable tribute to the strength of what London cricket reporters love to call “The Transpontine County,” and reeals the palmy days when Surrey, single-handed, could meet All England without fear. To have played more than twenty matches against the very cream and flower of English cricket, and to have escaped with but five defeats, is surely no disgraceful record. To have beaten the Gentlemen of England, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Oxford University is, to say the least, a creditable feat. To this it must be added that the Australians have been decidedly unlucky oyer their drawn games. More often than not in these cases, they have been robbed of apparently certain victory by the want of a little time. Indeed, the number of drawn matches on their list has been so exceptionally great as to open up the whole question of the sufficiency of the time allotted to threeday matches. By commencing these an hour earlier on the second and third day many a draw could be avoided. And this, we are tempted to think, could and should be done where, in the opinion of the umpires, the scoring on the first day has been heavy enough to make a draw likely, or where play has been impossible on the whole or any part of a day owing to bad weather. There are two chief reasons why big matches are not begun until twelve o’clock. One of these has its origin in the matter of gate money; the other concerns the physical endurance of the players themselves. Men who are playing match after match in continuous succession, rather prefer to waste an hour and a quarter in the morning in strolling round the ground, smoking a pipe in front of the pavilion, or opening their shoulders and the crowd’s ejes by knocking bad bowling about for what they are pleased to term practice. There can be little doubt that this increase in the number of drawn matches goes steadily on, and that it forms one of cricket’s future difficulties. Now that players are provided with billiard table turf, and are encouraged to take .refuge in the pavilion from every passing shower, tall scoring and protracted matches can only be kept in check by early hours. This is one moral to be drawn from the adventures of Mr Scott’s eleven. Another is that teams often show weakness 1 just where it is least expected. The Australian Eleven now at work at Home was always thought weak in batting, but exceptionally strong in bowling and fielding. Yet, oh the whole, their failures to win seem -quite as much to lie

at the door of their bowlers as of their batsmen. Their scoring, though seldom sensational, has been, for the most part, highly respectable. Where they have found the difficulty has been in bowling the other side out in time to secure victories. Occasionally, too, their bowling has been treated with the calmest disdain, not only by the great batsmen of the selected elevens, but by County teams, such as Surrey, Yorkshire, and Middlesex. Spofforlh has, apparently, been unable, since his accident, to strike the terrors of former days into his enemies’ hearts, and G-ilfen, since he took to making scores on his own account, appears to have lost the art of preventing his opponents doing the same. Jones and Scott seem to have kept up their reputation for consistent scoring; but Bruce, Trumble, and Jarvis, though occasionally showing themselves capable batsmen, hardly make runs often enough. Blackham and Bonnor certainly show no improvement on former years, and MTI wraith and Evans are almost complete failures. The telegrams have said so little about the bowling for some time, that the honour and blame in that department are difficult to apportion. It should be remembered, however, that Scott’s eleven has only once met a weak team —that of Derbyshire —and has, over and over again, had to face carefully selected combinations of the best English talent. The Australians have required to be always at their best, which is a great deal to ask from any men. Taking their matches together they have certainly not shown lack of quality, and their captain’s reported confession of an inability to cope with the flower of English cricketers must be narrowed down to a reference to the two matches with All - England. Otherwise it would amount to exaggerated humility, for during the whole summer Mr men have done nothing else but meet the flower of English cricket. | ===== . (J