GREAT CRICKETERS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 28, 2 August 1923, Page 11

GREAT CRICKETERS

POSSESSING A MAN OF THE YEAE.

Do we really enjoy a cricket season which lacks the special flavour that comes from possessing a man of the year? inquires a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." Is there not something lacking to a year in which cricketlovers, whatever their own county, do not glance first down the list of scores in order to see what So-and-so, man of the .year and popular favourite everywhere,' did yesterday?-The question is ■pertinent, because it is rather difficult to be at all sure whether there is anyone likely to fill the part this year. We of the last generation can remember the Grace years, when the doings of "W. G." came before even our own county. We can remember the vintage years of Banji, and, more dimly, those of Shrewsbury. There was a period when the presence of Trumper in this country drew one's eye autoniatically down the scores. There were Hirst years, there were Jessop yeai-Sj there was at least one Brearley year; there have been several Hobbs years, though even these, one fears, must be laid with the past, as Hobbs "grows'older; and there were Tyldesley years.

Something more than mere skill is needed for the attainment of this position. There have been men who have done great things year by year without ever quite reaching this eminence. The .scoring of many centuries, the taking of many wickets, are not enough.' There must be the special savour of an individual personality. The list of "years" detailed is by no means complete, but it will be noted that there was something distinctive about all the players mentioned, something that seems, lacking in' a Russell or a Mead, even in a Tom Hayward or aJ. W. Hearne. With "men of the year" there was a personal magnetism. Where can that be found among the great players to-day?