POPULAR CRICKET.
Dear Mr. Punch,—I enclose a cut from Le Radical, one of the leading Mauritius papers, and on behalf of the lovers of our national game in the island venture to ask for information regarding the last match recorded:—
"Londres, 14 mai, 4 hres p.m.—Mary-le-bone a battu Nottingham par 5 wickets; Lancashire a battu Leichester; Sussex a battu Warrick. En second lieu un joueur du Sussex a abattu H. Wilson par 187 wickets."
We are much perturbed at the strange developments that are evidently taking place in the game at home. Was this match, we want to know, a single-wicket game between the Sussex player and H. Wilson? If so how did he beat him by 187 wickets?
An ex-captain of the Cambridge eleven living here is of the opinion that, in order to make cricket more popular, the numbers of the opposing sides are being increased, and that this match must have been between a team of, say, a couple of hundred Sussex players and one of a like number captained by H. Wilson, and that only some dozen wickets had fallen in the second innings when the match ended. If this is the correct interpretation we should be very grateful for the rules, plan of the field, etc., as we are most anxious to move with the times in this little outpost of Empire.
I fear however that we shall have some difficulty here in raising two teams of more than a hundred-a-side.
We presume that, as a match of eleven-a-side takes two or three days to finish, about six or eight weeks are allotted to this new game.
Any help that you can give us, Sir, will be much appreciated.
Yours faithfully,
M.C.C.