The umpire... is like the geyser in the bathroom; we cannot do without it, yet we notice it only when it is out of order.

There ought to be some other means of reckoning quality in this the best and loveliest of games; the scoreboard is an ass.

Cricket more than any other game is inclined towards sentimentalism and cant.

Like the British constitution, cricket was not made: it has 'grown'.

The Australian temper is at bottom grim. It is as though the sun has dried up his nature.

The laws of cricket tell of the English love of compromise between a particular freedom and a general orderliness, or legality.

In cricket, as in no other game, a great master may well go back to the pavilion scoreless.... In no other game does the law of averages get to work so potently, so mysteriously.