The English team who have won the first two Test
matches so handsomely are, on paper, very little stronger than the English team who preceded them in Australia. There is Hammond, of course, a lion-hearted young cricketer, but then there is no Frank Woolley. England has discovered a really valuable fast bowler in Larwood, but we can hardly believe that fast bowling in itself has any terrors for men who are accustomed to playing against Gregory. Indeed our impression is that the Australian team are only a shade weaker than those teams which caused non-cricketers here to say that there was something fundamentally wrong with English cricket. As if the winning or losing vein—a compara- tively unexplained part of psychology—were not all part of the " luck " of the game ! In the present case at least, it has little relation to capacity. One reason of our team's victorious progress is Chapman's captaincy. Not only does he ring the changes on his bowlers in a way that must dishearten any batsman, except perhaps a Woodfull, but he seems to have a rare gift for leadership, to which all his men have responded.
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