JUSTICE TO JARDINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 148, 25 June 1934, Page 6

JUSTICE TO JARDINE.

CAPTAIN AND BOWLER. (To the Editor.) Your editorial "Shadow and Light" hardly appeals as quite fair to Jardine or Larwood in a situation which we in New Zealand can view impartially. Many who were 110 admirers of Jardine when he was selected as captain for the last English XL in Australia, thought if Chapman had been captain of England and Richardson of Australia, there would have been no friction. Both Jardine and Woodfull, as cricketers and captains, appear to be too dour and ruthless to be ideal leaders in a sporting test. One cannot imagine either of them unbending or enjoying a joke during the game, and playing it in a friendly spirit of give and take. But to say that "Jardine is largely responsible for the trouble that has arisen" is scarcely j »;t to the ex-English captain; in spite of intense abuse and provocation in Australia he neither <spoke nor wrote a word until his team had returned and disbanded. Then he stuck loyally to his men, and is still doing so. We must admire him for that, and there has bee" nothing cabled to justify your complaint "that Jardine should now sit in public judgment on his successor in the captaincy." When or where has he criticised Walters or Wyatt in any way? Larwood's statement has not ]>een cabled out, but it is probably true that he would not bowl "to orders." It is' not the practice in cricket for the captain to give "orders" to his bowlers, except to put and take them off, and it would be presumption on the part of a youngster like Walters to order Larwood or Geary how to bowl or what to bowl. The captain usually asks the bowler how lie wishes the field placed and sees it set, then it is the bowler's right to vary .it as he thinks wise, without necessarily consulting his captain, who also comes under the bowler's "orders" in this respect PERCY ANDREW.