English Cricket

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21726, 7 March 1936, Page 16

English Cricket

The voice of “ Wisden’s Almanack ” is one that must be heeded in the world of cricket. Last year it was the voice of sanity after the unhappy brawlings which accompanied the tour of the Australians in England. This year it speaks in a cold tone of pessimism when it finds that England has lost cricket rubbers not only to Australia, but also to South Africa and the West Indies. With charming charity it announces that the selectors are not to blame for the failure; they should be grateful for being once freed from total responsibility in a time of adversity. The first impulse of the crowd is to rail against the selectors of a cricket or football team if the team is luckless enough to meet a side that plays the game better. In the present extremity Wisden contents itself with a simple diagnosis of failure. “ English cricket,” it says, “is experiencing a lean period,” and the specific leanness is “ a shortage of class “bowlers.” A few reverses, however, make conditions seem rather worse than they are. If Verity could do again what he did to the Australians at Lord’s in 1934, it might be said that English bowling was as good as it had ever been, for 14 wickets in a day assures the reputation of any bowler. But it takes little to change the voice of the crowd from condemnation to approval, and from approval again to condemnation. At Lancaster Park yesterday, for example, the brass-voiced “ bankers ” were enjoining Cromb, the New Zealand captain, to take himself off when two or three boundaries had been hit off his bowling. A few balls later he caught and bowled Human, the second highest scorer for the M.C.C. team. Cromb then was applauded for his guile. Mora may be said about the day’s play at Lancaster Park yesterday, and in anticipation of the play that is yet to come if the weather holds good. In that M.C.C. team, dismissed with satisfactory cheapness by the New Zealanders, are young men who may be the chosen of destiny to rescue England from the leanness which so distresses Wisden. Already some of them have played for England, anil it is likely that two or three of them at least will be in the side striving to take the Ashes home from Australia next summer. Barber, Smith, Hardstaff, Holmes, Baxter, Read; and others, perhaps,, are likely to be names great enough to overshadow international crises before this year is out, and these men can be seen at Lancaster Park to-day. The match is at an interesting .stage.' For the present New Zealand, holds an advantage, but in, cricket an advantage can evaporate in half an hour; yet whatever happens it is certain

that the game will be worth watching, and it will be grim cricket than that which some •of these pleasant young Englishmen may be called upon to piny before they aie much older..