It will be seen from what I have said that matting wickets differ according as to whether they are laid on grass or otherwise. Matting stretched on grass gives the bowler more than a two-to-one chance, but matting on the bare grassless ground favours the batsman, though I am inclined to think that a really good bowler ought always to be able to make the ball “nip” a bit. Haigh certainly made the ball turn every now and again on the Wanderers’ ground, and both he and Albert Trott have told me that they would infinitely prefer to bowl on the best matting wicket in the world rather than on a really hard, true turf pitch. But the matting at Johannesburg is good enough for the most fastidious batsman, for it plays very fast, and though the pace of the wicket is apt to put a batsman off on first going in, once a man has got his eye in, he can make any amount of forcing strokes on both sides of the wicket, for the ball does not often hang on the pitch. Drives between cover and extra cover, and push strokes between the bowler and mid-on and past mid-on, can be made with great frequency, while the ball travels to the boundary at a great pace. Bowlers of the type of Haigh, Tate, or Howell (the Australian) are the most successful on matting wickets, but slow bowlers are not, as a rule, effective, and fast bowlers, unless really great ones, are usually heavily punished. The ordinary spikes one uses in England are quite useless on the matting, and have to be replaced by a sort of flat nail. The length of the matting varies in different places, and this, I venture to think, causes great inconvenience. At present the matting may be any length up to 22 yards, and often I found myself standing at one wicket with both feet off the matting, at another time with both feet on, and at another with one foot off and the other on the matting, while at Cape Town the pins which keep the matting down were placed just where the ordinary batsman puts his right leg. The South African Cricket Association might very easily pass a law making the matting uniform throughout the country, and in my opinion the matting should stop about a foot in front of the popping-crease. This is the length at Johannesburg. A captain may if he desires have the matting stretched tight at the commencement of each innings. In that case the pins are removed from the end and side of the matting, which is then well stretched by scores of Kaffirs, and afterwards firmly pinned into the ground. As a rule, however, merely the end pins are removed for a minute or two, the matting is given a pull, the pins replaced, and the matting swept, for pieces of grit and sand are very apt to collect on the mat, and a batsman has to look out for this while he is at the wickets.