for 74 and 78, Mason's share of the wickets being four for 26 and eight for 29, an excellent performance for any amateur on any wicket.
The last of our three divisions now claims our limited attention, and here it would be as well if I made yet another apology: the names of many of the great Australian bowlers have been omitted from these pages, from the fact that I have so seldom played against them. Of Giffen, Palmer, Turner, Ferris, Jones, and the "Demon Spofforth" I wish I could write, but what I could say of them would be as the sum of the runs I should in all probability have made against them. As I said before, to the cricketer who has got his heart and soul in the game, there is nothing much more exhilarating than the sleepy field being rudely awakened to a just sense of his duties. Speaking from a spectator's point of view, there is nothing more exciting than to watch the uprooting of the sticks, to note their gyration in the direction of the glorified long stop, and to follow the flight of a bail for fifty or sixty yards. To this end we must possess ourselves of a really fast bowler.
The best natural fast bowler, taken at the zenith of his fame, was Tom Richardson. Those of us that have watched him pounding away hour after hour and day after day at the Oval, have marvelled much at the wonderful natural spin, and have marvelled perhaps more at his inexhaustible energy and neverending fund of good-humour. He was never tired and never out of sorts, and when the wicket was badly
