A great feature of the cricket of this year was the immense improvement noticeable in Murdoch’s play; from this time forward he took rank as one of the greatest batsmen of the time, and perhaps the best of all the Australian players that have come to us. It is gratifying to see that, as in the case of our own champion, the ever-vigorous “W. G.,” Murdoch’s perfect upright style has enabled him to keep up a more than respectable proportion of his best form through at least twenty-five years of first-class cricket. This very day in April 1903, the morning paper tells us that, snow-showers and north winds notwithstanding, these two grand old cricketers are once more making an excellent appearance, going in first together at Kennington Oval. Long may they flourish! Another name that strikes us as appearing for the first time in these matches is that of G. Bonnor. We have already noticed the athletic and powerful frames that help our Australian friends so frequently to distinction in cricket, but how can we sufficiently admire the really magnificent physique of this giant among cricketers! 6 feet 6 inches in height and between 16 and 17 stones in weight, a very fast runner and prodigious thrower, we might well search the country through before we find his match as a splendid specimen of humanity. Let the reader think over all the men of at all similar proportions that he has ever met with, and see which of them could run at full speed and pick up a ball in the long field as he could. In so big a man this great activity implies a perfection of muscular development and proportion that is very rarely met with, and to see Bonnor hit and field at cricket may without exaggeration be described as the realisation of an almost ideal athletic experience. There have been endless discussions as to who has been actually the biggest hitter at cricket within living memory, but in the writer’s mind there is no doubt that Bonnor’s extra power gave him the first place for distance, although C. I. Thornton’s much more perfect swing made the competition a closer race than their relative physical powers would lead one to expect. Bonnor, Macdonnell, Massie, Lyons—what prodigious smacks to the unfortunate ball do these names bring to our recollection! It will be indeed a bad day for the old game when the conditions do not give reasonable encouragement to this heroic type of batsman, and, at all events while Jessop continues to play, we may well hope that there is no immediate danger of the race becoming extinct. [Illustration: _From a Painting by_ _A. S. Wortley._ _DR. W. G. GRACE._]