James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Companion 1885

7 Club matches. Tlieie can scarcely be two opinions as to the advantage of a team playing two or three times together preparatory to a test match, and the M.G.G., if they determined on such a course of action as this, could, at the annual meeting of County secretaries, secure open dates for the purpose. Here again we come back to the old point of abandoning some of our usual fixtures when A ustralian cricketers visit us. 9 Looking back at the other representative matches played by the A us ­ tralians last season, we see no reason to be dissatisfied with the part taken by E nglish cricketers. The G entlemen of E ngland beat tlie Colonists at Lord’s, but in their turn were beaten at the Oval. In both matches they put powerful teams into the field, but in neither were they able to command their best eleven. Among others the H on . A lfred L yttelton 9 was absent from both engagements. Tlie P layers were beaten at Sheffield, and the Ova], but in neither match were they represented by anything like their full strength ; and, moreover, they would certainly have won at Sheffield had they accepted a reasonable proportion of the catches offered them. The S outh of E ngland suffered a couple of disastrous defeats ; but both these matches came towards the end of the season, Avhen the best team was not obtainable. Against these lost matches, we can fairly set the one innings’ victory of the M akylebone C lub in May, and the two victories gained by the N orth of E ngland » —the one at Manchester in June, and the other at Nottingham in September. It is a specially notable fact, that A ustralia has never yet defeated , the NoRTii---the •A ustralian team of 1882 having suffered - ^ » . #- / < * 9 defeat at Manchester by ten wickets. . , We are glad to be able to say that there was a decided abatement of the throwing scandal, and it certainly seems that the resolution to which the representatives of Y orkshire , K ent , D erry , M iddlesex , N ottinghamshire , and S urrey subscribed, in the December of 1883, has borne good fruit. Of course there were occasional instances of unfair bowling to be met -with, but that there was an improvement no one who carefully watched the seasoiVs cricket can deny. O rossland , the player whose style had excited the most discussion, still bowled in a wav which was open to the gravest objection. Some little excitement was created during the season by the fact of his being “no balled” in a local match at Sutton-in-Ashfield, his native place. No umpire, however, in first-class matches had tlie courage to interfere with him. If the Counties be really in earnest, there is no reason why throwing in