On looking through their batting list, there are names which suggest plentiful run-getting capabilities. As a matter of fact, however, at that time the batting was, with one exception, C. Bannerman, of the most rugged and unfinished description. The above-named exception, Bannerman, might well have been given a high place among contemporary batsmen as a fierce-hitting, powerful player, worthy of any eleven for batting alone, but Blackham, Midwinter, Horan, Murdoch, A. Bannerman, and Garrett had none of them yet acquired the powers which in after years were to be theirs in such abundant measure, and the batting of the whole side, after C. Bannerman, was distinctly of the rough, useful order. In this connection it may be noticed, however, that although finish was to be looked for in vain, even at this early stage was evident that fearless and dogged resistance to adverse circumstances which has since then successfully extricated many an Australian side from a tight place, and has always given their adversaries that uncomfortable feeling of never being quite certain that they have really got them safely beaten. What an invaluable asset is a reputation of this sort, and how well and consistently have our Australian friends sustained this hardly-earned character! Emphatically this was a bowling and fielding eleven. In nineteen eleven-a-side matches, only twice was the 250 exceeded by their opponents, a convincing record that speaks for itself. Of the four bowlers, one great name stands out supreme, and who is there that remembers that year and the ten or twelve that succeeded it, but must confess that his whole ideas of bowling were revolutionised by what he saw of Spofforth in the prime of his powers? With physical qualifications admirably adapted to fast bowling, very tall, long-limbed, active, wiry, and impossible to tire, Spofforth had scientifically studied the art of bowling to a most unusual degree. The hard, true wickets in Australia had even then begun to exercise a decisive influence on the characteristics of bowling in that country, and unless a bowler could develop quite exceptional powers of deception, spin, and break, he was soon reduced to absolute helplessness. This difference in climate may be said to be the one element which makes a distinction between cricket as played in the Colonies and cricket as played in England, and, while its influence has been decisive in keeping up the standard of Australian bowling to a very high pitch of excellence, it has been at the same time hardly less favourable to the formation of a free and good style of batting, a style far more difficult to acquire when the ground is unreliable and the climate variable.