Kipling wrote the bit about "casting a ball at three straight sticks and defending the same with a fourth" in "Kitchener's School" in 1898.

I can't help getting the feeling that it's difficult to convince outsiders that some of the greatest Test matches have been drawn, because a seemingly beaten team battled on until time ran out.

The greatest Test of all, indeed, was a tie. Australia v. West Indies, Brisbane, December 1960. There were a couple of thousand people in the ground, but there are 200,000 people who claim to have been there. As an honest man, I can only claim to have been listening on the radio.

I suppose one has to be steeped in the game for many years to appreciate it.