CRICKET AND CRITICS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 40, 17 February 1937, Page 10

CRICKET AND CRITICS

It will be a bad day for cricket when people lose interest in the game unless it is of Test, calibre. There is'something disquieting in the references of the English critics, J. B. Hobbs and Neville. Cardus, to the poor attendance at the match between the M.C.C. and New South Wales at present proceeding on the Sydney Cricket Ground. Hobbs said yesterday: There was a poor crowd again. I cannot think what is the matter with Sydney- cricket followers. Are they losing interest in the game? It appears so, judging by the poor attendances here this tour, especially when one remembers the huge crowds at the Melbourne Test. To which Neville Cardus adds today, in his picturesque manner: This sad state of things is, I believe, caused by the mania for Test cricket, which battens on the game like some Moloch devouring his own young. If the public stay away from ordinary games and if players in these games use them as moments of relaxation, then how are future Test match cricketers to ,be bred and made accustomed to the atmosphere of important and/Challenging cricket? Everything in this world perishes where high finance is the first and main consideration. Only a week or two ago D. R. Jardinc, who captained England in Australia on the famous "body-line" tour, ventured to say that while "as a money-spinner Test cricket is grand" and English county cricket would cease to exist without it, "the place to play cricket is on the village green." Then Lord Hawke, who has run Yorkshire cricket for years, speaking next day, put in a strong plea for the "long handle" and giving the spectators "more for their money," otherwise there would be a serious decrease in, the gates.' It would appear that cricket flourishes best in club competitions where local interest is keen, as in the Lancashire League, a happy hunting ground for overseas adepts at the game, but, with its one-day matches, no school for Test cricketers. Sports can be run without a gale, but experience shows that they are all the better for popular support and, where expense is involved, a gate niay become essential if the game is to survive. This is certainly the case with our own national game of Rugby football, but cricket manages very well when we get such displays as that in the last Plunket Shield match between Wellington and Auckland. Probably the English critics are too pessimistic. Australia has had an exciting time with Test cricket this tour and both players and the public may be excused, a Httle languor just now while waiting for the supreme final Test at Melbourne lo; decide the issue of the Ashes. That is perhaps the true explanation of the psychological lapse on the part of thp public, noted with dismay by Messrs. Hobbs' and Cardus.