WILL BRADMAN PLAY?

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 237, 6 October 1932, Page 3

WILL BRADMAN PLAY?

BAN ON WRITER-PLAYERS.

AUSTRALIAN CONTROVERSY.

CONTROL BOARD'S DILEMMA.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, September 30.

The return of Mailey's team of cricketers from Canada last week was the overture to a very considerable outburst of discord in cricketing circles. Even while the Monowai with the cricketers was steaming up the harbour, the Board of Control was passing a resolution which reaffirmed its previous embargo on player-writers or writerplayers in more specific terms. For reasons that are familiar to everyone who has followed the history of Test cricket—or, for that matter, Test football —mi recent years, there are obvious objections to the inclusion in representative teams of players who act as correspondents for newspapers, and in this capacity comment on the play of individuals in the various teams, and criticise or express opinions about their own or their rivals' qualifications and achievements.

This sort of thing has caused a great deal of trouble in the past, and there is no doubt something to be said in favour of the resolution adopted by the Board of Control to the effect that no man who is picked in a Test team shall be allowed to act as newspaper correspondent in the sense defined above: unless ho is a professional journalist getting his living with his pen, and requests and secures the necessary permission from the board.

But while there is something to be said for this rule, there are two important points to be borne in mind. In the first place, though it was adopted some years ago in a milder form, it has been set aside more or lees completely in several cases since. In Australia, Woodfull, Ponsford, Oldfield and Grimmett, as well as Bradman, have contributed articles on cricket to various newspapers, under conditions that at times infringed the board's ruling. While the last Australian Eleven was at Home, Grimmett wrote a book which certainly did not square with the board's prescription, and Bradman himself, though he was penalised for going outside instructions in this matter, might fairly claim that up to that time the decisioTi of the board on this question had not become fixed. And the proof that this view of the case is correct lies in the fact that the board has now found it necessary to record its decision again in a stronger form, for if its decision had been final, the board would have had no reason or excuse for passing such a resolution again. To Keep Him in Australia. After the last Australian tour, the position in regard to player-writers was thus etill vague and indefinite. Breaches of former rules had been condoned, and the board'g policy for the future was by no means settled. It is at this point that Bradman's case assumes such exceptional importance. For as everyone should know, it was in the interval between the last Home tour and the present season that Bradman accepted the contracts which are now causing so much debate and difficulty. Young and ambitious, and conscious—as well he might be —of his own athletic value, he must have been sorely tempted by the attractive terms offered him to desert Australia and play as a professional at Home. To save Australian cricket from so disastrous a loss, cricket enthusiasts here arranged to provide him with occupations sufficiently remunerative to make up for the chances that he had rejected at Home. In this way Bradman entered into contracts with three Sydney concerns—Palmers, Ltd., a city broadcasting company, and Associated Newspapers; and these contracts now prevent him from submitting unconditionally to the ruling of the Board of Control if he is to play in the Tests. A great many people seem to entertain quite mistaken ideas about Bradman and the attitude he has taken up toward the board. In some quarters he is assumed to be a self-opinionated young man, rather bumptious and arrogant, or distinctly selfish and suffering unduly from "swelled head." I believe this conception of him to be entirely, erroneous. I cannot speak from per- j sonal knowledge, but I quote with some i confidence the estimate given of his character in a recent article by one of the greatest players and captains that Australia ever produced—M. A. Noble. After an enthusiastic description of Bradman as a batsman who has "overshadowed all the giants of the past," Noble sums him up in two short sentences: "He is quiet, modest and intelligent. He fortunately knows his own value, and has become the greatest crjeket personality in the world."

Not Defying Board. Now, what attitude has Bradman taken up toward the Board of Control and the rule that it has just adopted? Even in Sydney some newspapers have described Bradman as "challenging" or "defying" the board; but nothing could well be further from the truth. In all the numerous interviews that he has given to the Press since his return, he has reiterated the same statements — that he accepts unreservedly the authority of the board, but that lie cannot break the contracts into which, he has entered, and that if the board insists on the observance of its rule in the letter as well as the spirit he will not be able to play in the Test teams. Given all the circumstances of the case, I fail to see that lie could say anything else. A large number of enthusiasts are not prepared to accept this situation. Bradman, they say, must recognise that he owes much to cricket; that it has made him socially and professionally what he is, and that he cannot, without sheer ingratitude, and lack of public spirit or national pride, adopt a course

that would exclude him from the Test matches. But it may be pointed out in reply that cricket here owes a great deal to Bradman, and that the Board of Control and the various "cricket associations are evidently depending on. liim to a large extent to draw vast multitudes to their grounds this season and swell the gate receipts. Moreover, the stand that Bradman takes on the question of his personal business is hardly open to attack. He is young, but he is ambitious, he is already married, and he has to make his way in the world. To break his contracts would mean not only the surrender of very valuable emoluments, but the destruction of hie commercial and financial credit, and it may be questioned if any young man in his position should ever be counselled, for such reasons, to make such sacrifices as these.

The position is untenable, because it is unthinkable that Bradman will not play in the Tests. Everybody, the crkketere in Australia and England, the general public, the newspapers—all agree that Bradman's absence would be a real national tragedy; and I do not think that the Board of Control will lightly face the tremendous responsibility of excluding him.