EDDIE PAYNTER

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 148, 26 June 1933, Page 9

EDDIE PAYNTER

HERQ OF THE BOYS

A LANCASHIRE BATSMAN

THE ACCENT OF STYLE

The other dny I saw in a Manchester park a number of boys, ragged and dirty nnd happy, and they were beginning the cricket season. .One of them gripped an old and hard bat (one of those which sting all over the body when you hit with the bottom of the blade); he got down on it in front of the primitive stump's, and after he had struck a fierce attitude he announced that he was "Eddie Paynter." Not ■ "Bradman," . mark you;, not "Hammond" or "Sutcliffe." None of these recognised masters was good enough to express a boy's hero-worship; Eddie Paynter was the chosen, the elect, the anointed, writes Neville Cardus in the "Manchester Cfua'rdian." ' . Here, I' thought, was the proof of immortality. A cricketer lives as long as he is emulated by boys. It was this way years ago when I myself was young, with other flames of life and imagination. Where are they all now?—long lanky Smith, who bowled slow if he had that afternoon been watching 'Johnny Briggs and fast and all over the place and absurdly beyond his strength if he had that afternoon seen Mold. And Jones, who was the best boy batsman I ever saw, straight out of a tale by Talbot Baines Reed, a hitter of winning sixes, geneuous, and the best companion. And young Brown, who once carried A. C. MaeLaren's bag down Warwick Koad and was envied by the rest of -us for months. ..And Thompson, who was fat for his years, and could never be trusted not to run the whole side out, all excepting himself, because his plan was to. shout after he had made a stroke "Yes! — No!" and not budge an inch.- TTe all played every summer evening after school, until it was so dark that you had to crouch at* the wicket. like Jessop, so that you could see the ball up against the western sky. ■-..■•,■."■ SYMBOL AND MAN. ...Where are these companions of youth now? Sentimentally I saw them, every one, in the park the other day when the urchin said he was "Eddie Pa3*nter"! Years ago it was Johnny Tyldesley; but only the symbol changes. The truth remains the same. Cricket is a boy's game at.its best; with the grown-ups amongst ■us it is never as good as it used to be. It is good to think of Paynter as a hero with our youngsters. He iis a "Lancashire lad, and he bats like one. His pulls from the middle stump are real "county," cross-bat and all. There is an aptness about a true cricketer's style, a genuine accent." Consider Lord Aberdare, better known as the Hon. C. N. Bruce, who a your or two ago played for Middlesex. Each of his innings had blue blood in its veins; he drove through the covers like an aristocrat. This was cricket of poise, Kauteur, and exclusive as the pavilion at Lord's. There you had the proof that the style is the man .himself. Imagine Richard Tyldesley batting like that; imagine Richard Tyldesley with his left leg thrust across, all lofty disdain, wrists supple and stylish, his strokes out of Debrett's! You would laugh, because you wo,uld see the incongruity, the falsity, of it.. The accent would be untrue. Imagine that some summer morning Lord Aberdare has just seen an article containing a criticism of his play. "I have read your notes today," he might say, "and you have made one or two deprecatory comments upon my cricket to which I would like to take exception." The accent and choice of words would not bo out of character. NOT HIS OWN TONGUE. ' But let us suppose that -Richard Tyldesley, after reading an article, has approached a cricket-writer,' saying, "I have read your notes today, and you have made on* or two deprecatory comments ..." etc., etc. In a minute we should realise that Tyldesley was not speaking to us in his proper tongue; we should expect him to say—well, we should expect him to talk to us in Westhoughton. It is the same when a Tyldesley or a Lord Aberdare is playing cricket; we expect from the one a Westhoughton cut, and from the other we expect a Winchester cover-drive. . Paynter's cricket tells you where he hails from; it is out of the Lancashire soil: his strokes come from the. Very shape of him. He is not altogether beautiful in his style,. but then, Lancashire county is not altogether beautiful. Paynter is a Lancashire lad in every innings, just as Spooner was a Liverpool gentleman. It is easy to point out that J?aynter's bat is riot straight; the most myopic eye could make this discovery. But .L T. Tyldesley's bat was not straight. Paynter's play has as much of original gumption in it as of acquired and cultivated craftsmanship. You can see some cricketers getting their deeds done by giving careful attention to first principles. Sutcliffe is one.of those who have added by thoughtfulness several inches to their stature;. There are other cricketers who are splendid in so far as they are instinctive; their gifts are homely to us because they do not ever appear recondite. The difference between Henry James and Charles Dickens, C. B. Fry, and George Hirst! When Paynter hits, hard I can hear his bat'uttering ;many, a "By gum" and many a "Gradely." To object to Paynter's pull is as beside the point of the man's style as it would have been in the old days to object to Palairet's coverdrive. ' . ' TRAITS AND FAULTS. A cricketer's technique, like that of any other artist or craftsman, is "correct" if its parts are relevant oneto another, andif they are essential to the working of the whole. The job of criticism is to distinguish between genuine traits of style and characteristics" which are insignificant and superfluous. These are the "faults." For example, Paynter is guilty of ' a "fault" when to an off-side ball he holds out his bat with his arms a long way from his body. That stroke is. negative and tells us nothing true of Paynter, is dangerous, and cannot be fitted to his style in the lump. It is pedantic to say of a batsman that his style is not good merely because his best strokes are sent to the on and to leg. The complete cricketer, of course, scores all round the wicket. Maybe Paynter has already added to his off-side hits, as a consequence of experience on the fast turf of Australia. He is good enough to be going on with, anyhow. Last year, at Bradford, be played an.innings of genius against' Yorkshire. His driving that day, on a bad wicket, was violent and (rapid. Paynter is one of those rare batsmen who can win a match in an hour. And he can be dogged, obstinate aa a mule. He is of our own soil; his cricket tells of life bred in places that set close to the bone of things. He won the hearts of the Australian crowds, not only by his gnHunt batting", but by his swift, vehement fielding. Ho runs after a ball like the wind; you cannot toll one foot from another as they twinkle in pursuit. Here; again, he is a cricketer who stirs the natural impulses of men—and of boys. The urchin in the park chose his hero well —not Bradman, not Hammond, not Sutcliffe, but "Eddie Paynter," scarcely known to us a year ngo, and today part of Lancashire county's fame and character.