rally, with the fielding area in a lifeless condition, batsmen's totals do not rank high. "The stereotyped batsman who is content on hard wickets to wait for the particular ball from which he can score safely is not likely to find runs easy to make when "mud patch " wickets come along. And there were at least two batsmen of that particular type on the English side. To everyone's astonishment the services of Hitch were requisitioned to the exclusion of a forcing batsman in the person of Hayes. Had there been the slightest chance of the wicket becoming fast there may have been reason for such a move but it is unusual for a wicket of so sodden a character as the one at old Trafford so unmistakably was to roll out into anything upon which a fast bowler' may reasonably be expected to be of some service. If England cannot dismiss a side on a bad wicket by the aid of Barnes, Haigh, Woolley, Rhodes and Foster, they will not be likely to win that game by calling in the services of a sixth bowler and that a fast one.
Of course, it is a different proposition when wickets rule hard. In many affairs of life there is no truer saying than "too many cooks
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.