Salute to Australia It can be no more than a
half-hearted salute, not because anyone will grudge the better side its victory, but because the victory has been achieved in conditions so depressingly unsatisfactory. The Test Matches of 1934 would have left no one cheerful, however the final decision went. They began with an old controversy still smouldering and Jardine and Larwood out of the English side in consequence. Apart from that the English players sustained so many casualties in county matches that the best English side was never available, the climax, of course, coming with the breakdown of Ames and Bowes on Tuesday. The fourth match was a draw so heavily in Australia's favour that an English victory at the Oval, giving the rubber to this country, would have seemed almost a defeat of justice. Of this week's match all that can be said is that it was won by superlatively good cricket on the part of two individual batsmen, Bradman and Ponsford, aided by Grimmett's bowling and some deplorable fielding and hardly less deplorable butting by the English XI. There were, of course, exceptions, notably Leyland's batting in the first innings and Bowes' bowling in the second, while the quality of Ames' wicket- keeping is shown by the astonishing fact that Australia's first innings total of 701 included no more than 4 byes.
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