James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Companion 1885

62 they shall have retired from the scene of first-class encounter. Unles I am very much mistaken, many of these young players only need an opportunity to prove their excellence even in the best company, although I would again, as I have done in the past, go dead against filling up a representative Australian team with colts while the well-tried players retained the form to justify continued confidence in them. Even now however, it is apparent that if Australia’s full strength had to be chosen’ one or two who were included in M urdoch ’ s Thirteen of 1884 would be left out. One of the youngsters who I hope will visit England with the next Australian Eleven is W. B ruce , formerly of the Melbourne Scotch College, who plays with the Melbourne Club. He is certainly the best colt who has been brought out for many seasons in Melbourne Though a left hander, he bats in excellent sty le; his fielding is marked by extreme accuracy and a quick return, while he is already one of the very best bowlers in Australia, and on a sticky wicket a veritable Demon the second. There is one fact connected with Australian cricket which I think to some extent accounts for the Colonies developing so many first-class bowlers, and that is the absence of professionals. Certainly the Mel­ bourne Club employ four or five ground bowlers, but these are generally young fellows, quite incapable of instructing a novice in the science of the game, or pointing out his faults, and as very few of the clubs employ even a ground bowler, the rising players have moi’e opportunity, and indeed necessity, for attending to this branch of the game when prac. tising than their English cousins, who in neai*ly every club of any importance have plenty of professional talent at hand to do the bowling. Whatever excellence Australian cricketers may have already attained, I feel sure that one circumstance has all along seriously, prevented the full development of talent, and that is, that the public schools do not employ instructors in the noble national pastime, and it is therefore all the more remarkable and creditable to the Australian schoolboy that, with comparatively no instruction or early lines for guidance, he turns out so good a player as he generally does. Tbe fact is the exhilarating climate of the sunny south seems to plant in the juvenile mind a natural love, and in the body aptitude, for outdoor sports; and despite the fact that the youngster, as a rule, has to learn for himself without advice or assistance, I think it may be safely anticipated that the coming genera­ tions of Australian cricketers will at least equal their predecessors in excellence, although, at the same time, we may not be fortunate enough to have again banded in one team such players as S pofforth , P almer , B lackham , M urdoch , G arrett , H oran , B onnor , and B annerman . lassie , G iffen , M c D onnell ,