GREAT CRICKETERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 44, 20 August 1938, Page 26

GREAT CRICKETERS

BY ONE OF THEM

•■ With Test matches going on in England between Australia arid the Homeland, a book on cricket by W. A. Oldfield- appears very opportunely. There has probably never been; a greater wicket-keeper thaii Oldfield; possibly for sustained brilliance- over a- long period of years; never one y so '- great. What is ."certain is .that no more likeabl,e. fellow^ no finer sportsman^ ever put on the. gloves. No .'keeper. was eVer less ostentatious.•> Iri all the straija of a needle Test match he invariably reriiained quiet arid; cool,-tak-ing an acrobatic-. catch on the leg side, bringing off -a dazzling, feat of stumping;;, with 'almost an air of regret.' He was never known to try to bluff an umpire. If he appealed the umpire knew, and the batsman knew, that in Oldfield's opinion he was out; and one may hazard the guess that no 'keeper ever had a larger percentage of his appeals allowed. .His book is characteristic. Oldfield writes with engaging modesty; of his own exploits, with'generosity of others'. His judgments on great players he has met, coining from a man who is not only, a profound student of cricket, but for fifteen years has occupied the best of all, positions ( for judging the strength- or weakness of batsman and bowler, deserve a permanent place in the history; of cricket. With all deference to the wonderworker, Bradman, he thinks the most brilliant batsman he has ever seen; and he quotes that classic, devastatirig century before b lunch at Leeds in 1926, and the great little man's 345 against Notts in 1921, when he hit 200 in two hours and then sent in for his long-handled bat explaining with unconscious humour that he meant to "have, a go." The most difficult bowler he ever kept to —and this is unexpected in a mart who has had to take Mailey, Grimmett, and Fleetwood-Smith—was the. medium-paced right-hander, C. E. Kelleway. With his perfect,length and subtle variations of swerve; and break either way, Kelleway was a vastly under-rated bowler. Oldfield - differs from riiany good judges, too, in putting Grimmett ahead of Mailey. Of Hobbs he writes with the greatest admiration and affection, and he pays a well-deserved tribute to the grace and brilliance of Woolley (the most., silent player, except [ Hammond, he' has known), the extraordinary pluck' and skill of Sutcliffe on sticky wickets, the humour that so endeared Patsy Hendren to all Australians, and the astonishing fielding ;of A. P. F. Chapman, at once the greatest allround fieldsman he has seen, and the best captain he ever played against in Tests. Oldfield tells many good stories in this informal, informative autobiography. Perhaps the best is abo&it Armstrong. On his way to England in 1921 the Australian captain "was concerned at. the fact that he weighed twenty stone. Thereafter, every! afternoon at five he would disappear and join the stoker's for an hour. He; had his reward when, on reaching England, he hopefully stopped on the scales, and found he weighed twenty-^one- stone; - ■