TEST MATCH LESSONS. AUSTRALIA’S SUPERIORITY.

THE “ASHES” RECOVERED.

By Colonel Philip Trevor, C.b.e.

It is all over, and the England team, have lost the rubber. Yet that form of expression of a fait accompli does the Australians an injustice. They have won it. Moreover, they have won it fairly and squarely on their merits. They have proved that they are the better cricketing side of the two. For all that, the England team have little to reproach themselves with in regard to their performance in the third Test match, which, after six days of dogged and strenuous cricket, ended in the victory of the Australians by 119 runs. They were beaten, but they were far from being disgraced. Yet what a win it was for the Australians. At the close of the third day’s play the eventual losers, to quote the dangerous prophecy of a cablegram, “Had the match well in hand.”

When I read it I, of course, hoped that the prophet was doing more than prophesising something that would be delectable for our home consumption. And then at once I doubted. I wondered if such an expression could ever be justified in regard to our men when a Test match was in progress in Australia. Yet if ever such a prophecy seemed to be justified that transmitted from Adelaide last Monday evening seemed to be the exception that was to prove the rule. The Australians had then lost three wickets in their second innings, and were still twenty odd runs short of the England total. They began the fourth day’s play under the shadow of impending defeat, and nothing but a colossal batting performance could give them a chance of victory. Well, as we know, that colossal performance was duly forthcoming.

The table-turning began on Tuesday morning, and no occult influence subsequently righted the furniture. Three Australian batsmen played three-figure innings, and they did not owe their success to faulty English fielding. When in a fourth innings a side makes 250 runs on a good wicket it does well; when it makes 300 it does more than well; when it makes over 300 it does extremely well. That is the accepted standard of measurement in the cricket field. So our men did extremely well – but not well enough. Such an occasion demands emphasis and even excuses repetition. So I repeat that the Australians won the third Test match magnificently – so magnificently that you may search in vain the records for a case which was as thoroughly creditable to the winners. The Australian has knocked the Englishman out in the third round, after winning easily on points in the first and second rounds. Our men went to Australia to win the rubber. They were the best we could send from a purely English point of view, and they have lost it. Moreover, in losing it they never even stretched their opponents.

OUR BATTING TAIL.

I have no personal objection to standing in a white sheet when the occasion demands it of me, and I am almost accepting my own invitation to robe myself in that way at the moment. I did think that the team which sailed last September from Tilbury was appreciably our best team, though I ventured to draw attention to certain technical weaknesses. We had a distinct batting tail, and before the first Test match was played I expressed my fears as to the catching and fielding capacities of some of our men. Our catching, or rather our failure to bring off fairly simple catches, has cost us a few hundred runs. On the other hand, we seem to have exceeded expectation in the matter of run-saving.

The bowling can be rather briefly summed up. On neither side was there a bowler who was regarded by his opponents as a terror. Yet, after all, a really sound batsman with the necessary temperament and the necessary physical stamina, could generally accuse himself with reason of having got himself out when he wended his way back to the pavilion defeated. I have used the word temperament. Therein, in my opinion, lies, the secret of the Australian success. He may not be noted for making excuses for others, but at the same time he makes none for himself. The batting performances of Armstrong, Kelleway, and Pellew on Tuesday and Wednesday last are uncomfortably fresh in our minds. Yet when we read the cablegrams telling us of them did we honestly say, “There’s a miracle happening at Adelaide.” I think most of us said, “Hallo – these Australians have been doing it again”. The Australians have beaten as mainly because of their batting grit. If you had a machine by means; of which you could measure and record the exact technical skill of each particular batsman, I doubt if the totals when added up would reveal the fact that the cumulative value of the Australian batsmen was in excess of that of our batsmen, even admitting that we had a distinct “tail” and that they had not. But it has now once more been proved that skill is not of much use to a batsman if he leaves it in the pavilion. The efficiency of Australian batting is greater than the efficiency erf English batting (when matches are played in Australia), because their grit is nearly always in evidence. And grit comes chiefly from temperament. The Australians have recovered the “Ashes” easily and handsomely, and, notwithstanding our bad luck in the matter of the wicket during the second Test Match, they have thoroughly deserved their success.