Random reminder

Press, 29 December 1980, Page 21

Random reminder

OH, LORDS The South African cricketer Clive Rioe, one of the world’s top allrounders, has fallen foul of authorities by posing naked in a newspaper advertisement for sports equipment . Rice was pictured with only a St Christopher’s medal around his neck and a bat strategically held.”—news item. It is hard to see why the hapless Rice should fall foul of the authorities because of this harmless gesture. Surely the authorities should have the wit and imagination to perceive that this is the very sort of thing which is likely to attract the right sort of youngster to cricket. What fit, lusty young lad would not be drawn to a game where you may get the chance to pose as a sex object, and collect a decent-sized fee for endorsing sports goods while you do so? And after all, Rice’s bat was strategically held. (We presume he • was shaping up for an off-drive.) It says a lot for cricket that its practitioners can look good wearing nothing but a strategically held bat and a St Christopher’s medal. We can think of certain All Blacks whom we would rather not see wearing nothing

but a referee’s whistle and a strategically placed football. And after all, Rice was endorsing sports equipment. We agree that the situation might have been a bit different if he was depicted wearing nothing but a St Christopher’s medal and a strategically placed bottle of gin, or a carton of cigarettes. If we were the cricket authorities (and there are times when we think that we are, then in the over-all interests of the game (and when we say “overall interests” we dont mean “over-all interest” in the sense of OVER-ALL interests if you see what we mean), then we would feel this move towards topless cricket advertising should be encouraged as a first step towards the introduction of nude cricket, which is surely the next logical extension of the developments introduced to the game by Mr Kerry Packer. Nude cricket would be perfectly seemly and proper, _ because the batsmen would be wearing pads and a box, and the fieldsmen would, for the most part, not be moving, thus complying with the test laid down by the Lord Chamberlain for the nudes- at the old Windmill Theatre. ,