I suppose no one but a hardened criminal would want
to see his own country beaten in the final Test Match. But I come within an ace of wanting that myself. Nothing could be more unsatisfactory, after what happened at Leeds, than for England to win the Oval match and the rubber. Remember the scores. Australia 584 ; England 200 and 229 for six ; then rain. England, but for the weather, was smashed to a certainty— beaten, almost inevitably, by an innings. Yet the game counts as a draw, to be added to the other, much more inconclusive, draw at Manchester. And with one clear victory to each side the Oval match, which cannot be drawn, as it will be played to a finish, will settle everything. In a kind of way every Englishman must want to see England win, but if the Australian XI of 1934 is in consequence to be labelled inferior to the English XI's of 1934 it will be labelled wrongly.
JANUS.
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