—what prodigious smacks to the unfortunate ball do these names bring to our recollection! It will be indeed a bad day for the old game when the conditions do not give reasonable encouragement to this heroic type of batsman, and, at all events while Jessop continues to play, we may well hope that there is no immediate danger of the race becoming extinct.
Taken as a whole, the team showed a decided advance on their predecessors, and Murdoch and Macdonnell in particular gave many fine displays of batting. The bowling suffered from the absence of Garrett, and the failure of any adequate substitute to take his place, and also from Spofforth's absence in half the eleven-a-side matches. When he was able to play, however, his bowling was as irresistible as ever, while Palmer at once worked his way into the front rank of bowlers.
A new departure in the programme was made in the match against a picked England eleven played rather too late in the year, on 6th September. The weather, however, was all that could be wished at that time, and a great match resulted in a well-deserved win for England by five wickets. Murdoch and W. G. Grace were fittingly the batting heroes of the match, and the time was evidently at hand when the best English eleven would find its equal in our rapidly improving Australian friends. Only four matches lost out of thirty-seven played was the final result, although only eleven of these were eleven-a-side matches, and the programme did not provide the sterner test of later tours.
