totalled 551, On getting our opponents in for the last one and a half hours on the second day, Richardson and Hearne bowled so well that, after the cheap dismissal of their best batsmen, they were never able to recover their lost ground, although Trumble and M'Leod made a magnificent effort at the finish of the first innings. Following on, 314 to the bad, the Australians did far better, Darling playing a grand innings of 101, whilst Clem Hill put together 86 in his best style. The remaining batsmen played very disappointingly, with the exception of Kelly, the score reaching 408, leaving us 96 to win, which were hit off for the loss of Mason's wicket. Ranjitsinhji played a wonderful innings, considering how ill he had been, only having got out of bed on the Sunday morning, when he went for a drive. He was just able to last out the hour's batting he had on the Monday evening, and next morning played, especially towards the close of his innings, when his strength was leaving him, a regular forcing game. In the second test, at Melbourne, owing to the game being played on a new piece of turf, which the groundsman was most anxious to avoid, whatever chance we might have had was taken from us. The wicket opened out to such an extent that one could put one's fingers into the cracks on the pitch, which meant that the ball was always doing something which it had no right to do, getting up or keeping low according to the angle at which it struck the crack. The Australians were very fortunate, under the circumstances, in winning the toss and batting on a perfect wicket on the
