NO MORE OF IT!

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1938, Page 23

NO MORE OF IT!

HUTTON'S MARATHON

NOT THE BRADMAN WAY

Len Hutton's timeless Test-piece should go in the file devoted to polesquatting, marathon dancing, fairground fasting feats, and such-like world-shattering records of human endurance. As for giving it a berth alongside Don Bradman's 334 runs in the Leeds game of 1930—well, states a writer in an English paper, we shall have none of it!

Now don't get us wrong. We saw pretty nearly all the Hutton batting, and raise our battered sombrero to the young man for his patience, concentration, endurance, and Yorkshire doggedness. But' the one big thought:—Was it cricket as the game is known to us? An innings of foreshortened strokes. An innings in which the world's worst all-round Test attack was treated with ultra-caution on what, so the experts have it, was among the world's bestbatting wickets.

Thirteen hours 17 minutes for 364 runs. Colossal Amazing! But never to be ranked with Bradman's brilliant 334 at Leeds. True enough, Hutton topped the Don by 30 runs; but he took another 7 hours 2 minutes to do the trick. They say there is a man born for every occasion/Maybe. Anyhow, Hutton fulfilled his destiny in the timeless Test to end all timeless Tests. This loose-limbed keen-faced Yorkshire boy has never been one of cricket's speedsters. Under any other sort of conditions, his marathon meander would have been against the best interests of his side. As it was, the Oval affair suited him admirably. Hutton was happy to take singles where another player would have cracked boundaries. Indeed, we dare say that had there been half-runs—with risks diminished accordingly—he would have gone for them.

Bradman could not have done it! No, the Bowral batsman is too much of a natural genius to treat an indifferent attack in any other way than on its merits. And, say what you will, the only Australian to look like a Test bowler was "Rocking-horse" O'Reilly. Then, even the O'Reilly was pretty much tamed by a groundsman's dream wicket. Apart, from that wristy stroke that put hint ahead of Bradman's Test best, we can recall few strokes in Hutton's locker. Need we say more?