“The Fifth Test Match,”
“An Innings Defeat for England.”
“Mr. Warner, interviewed, said South Africans were undoubtedly the superior side, especially on their own wickets. It was a good thing that they had won the Test matches, as it had given a fillip to the game in South Africa.”—Reuter’s Special Service, April 2nd, 1906.
Mr. Lacey’s Opinion.
In the course of an interview at Lord’s yesterday afternoon (April 2nd) Mr. F. E. Lacey, the M.C.C. Secretary, said (the Star states) in response to an inquiry regarding the reason that the M.C.C. eleven should have been so unaccountably beaten in four of the five Test matches: “Not unaccountable at all. It is a case in which the better side has won.
“There is little doubt that the South Africans have improved wonderfully, but certainly M.C.C. should have done better.
“I believe the chief cause of our defeat has been poor fielding. Then again, such really great batsmen as P. F. Warner and Hayes have not done themselves justice.
“A great many judges of the game attribute the apparent failure of our team to the fact that our men are playing on matting, but I can scarcely agree with them. I have practised a lot on matting wickets, and, judging from my own experience, it should hold no terrors for a really good batsman.
“I can only attribute the defeat of our eleven to inferior play. The fielding has been poor, the bowling only moderate, and the batting, with one or two exceptions, second-rate.
“Of course, it is very difficult to judge when one is sitting in the pavilion at Lord’s and the games are being played in South Africa, so perhaps I may be wrong.