Frank Worrell The Ninth Of Cricket's Knights

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30342, 18 January 1964, Page 11

Frank Worrell The Ninth Of Cricket's Knights

TVHEN the West Indian captain became Sir Frank Worrell in the New Year s Honours List he was the ninth cricketer to achieve that distinction in 8« years of test matches. It was also perhaps an indication of the appeal the sport has to those in high places, as two recentlyretired Australian test players, A. K. Davidson and R. N. Harvey, received the M.8.E., and other current players, including J. R. Reid arid R. Benaud. can boast letters to their names. The first of the evergrowing list of cricketing knights was the longest serving secretary of the M.C.C., Sir Francis (F. E.) Lacey. He started in the position in 1898 and retired in 1926, the year the Ashes were regained at the Oval —a period of service of 28 years. The next was one who had a tremendous burden in his particular sphere, but a burden that grew lighter the longer he served. Sir Frederick (F. C.) Toone was manager of the first three M.C.C. teams to tour Australia after World War I. and he must have been extremely satisfied to see the more satisfactory results achieved with each tour. The first team (192021) lost all five tests—comfortably; the 1924-25 was rather done an injustice by losing the tests, 4-1 (it lost one of them by only 11 runs); and the 1928-29 team, with W. R. Hammond in Bradmanlike form, won all but the last test—where the young Bradman was starting to scale dizzy heights. So Mr Toone returned home from his last tour to find himself cricket’s sec-

ond knight. Probably the most justified and generally accepted honour was made eight years later in 1987 when Pelham F. Warner (“Plum”) received his title. A captain in Australia with two M.C.C. teams (although he played only one match in 1911-12 because of illness), and a visitor in die same capacity to South Africa, Warner worked unceasingly for cricket until his death last year. He retired from first-class play in 1921 when the Middlesex he captained won the county championship—and feeling that he had to make some contribution to cricket, started a publication called the “Cricketer,” a magazine that, to his probable joy, has outlived him. Even had he not been knighted before World War n, there is no doubt he would have been after the war. When Lord’s and England were being invaded by Goering’s pride and all the cricketers were away on another field — some, like Hedley Verity and Kenneth Fames giving their lives—Sir Pelham Warner stayed on at the Long Room, keeping records and relics intact. Less than four years after the war there was an unprecedented happening when D. G. Bradman was knighted in the 1949 New Year’s list before he had played his last innings in first-class cricket. Bradman’s contribution to cricket, and not only from the statistician’s point of view, was immense, and he is one of the very few who have caused revolutions of varying degrees (bodyline was one) in his 20 years is cricket.

Four years after Bradman came the conferring of a knighthood on one who was revered by all the lovers of Festival cricket, H. D. G. (or “Squib”) LevesonGower. For as Long as elderly people dared remember, he had been the organiser and guiding light of the Scarborough Festival Week, an occasion looked forward to by some county players, abhorred by others and visiting teams, and loved by casual spectators. T. N. Pearce, the old Essex captaind, succeeded Sir Henry Leveson-Gower, but Leve-son-Gower will always be associated with it. The sixth knighthood—also in 1953—was one that must have pleased Sir Pelham Warner, who for ever maintained that all Players were gentlemen and all Gentlemen players. For the first time in history, a Player (professional) was honoured to that very great degree and Sir John Berry Hobbs bore his title nobly for 10 years. His knighthood was not only a tribute to the greatest opening batsman the world is likely to see but also to an unselfish team-man, a generous opponent, and the personification of all that was good in professional cricket As though to show that Hobbs would not be the only professional to be knighted, Leonard Hutton was knighted in 1956, a year after he retired. Then still the holder of the world test record for an innings (364) Hutton, with a canniness that was as Yorkshire as himself, had led England out of the cricketing wilderness it found itself in after the Second World War and was the first professional to be appointed captain of England since the bad old days of the nine-

teenth century. Although his policy was not one designed to attract people to cricket, it was a winning one and came like a breath of fresh air to England. And before Worrell, number eight was Learie Constantine, a man not good enough to captain the West Indies (in those days when coloured men were not captains) but a player who gave great enjoyment by the manner he captained the Dominions team in the Victory test of 1945. As an allrounder who was the most deserving of the appellation “dashing,” Constantine owed a lot of his knighthood to his work as a diplomat. But as far as the enjoyment he gave is concerned, he is a true knight of the game. And so to Worrell, the first coloured cricketer to captain ths West Indies and the man who did it better than anyone before him. Worrell undertook the position for a strenuous tour of Australia and with his inspiring example—which R. Benaud, to his great credit, followed—made the tour and series, one of the best ever. Worrell intended to retire after that tour but with no comparable replacement available was persuaded Into captaining the team in England last year. He again made an outstanding impression with his qualities in leadership and diplomacy, and on return to Kingston, was made a Freeman of the city. And a curious fact of the nine cricketing knights is that none of them was a bowler or wicket-keeper in his playing days. As several have remarked, the last bowler to be knighted was Sir Francis Drake. A pity, because Sir Frederick Trueman would sound so enchanting.