AUSTRALIAN CRICKETERS

Evening Star, Issue 20585, 10 September 1930, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN CRICKETERS

OFFICIAL FAREWELL DINNER A DISTINGUISHED GATHERING LONDON, September 9. The Australians were officially entertained at a farewell dinner at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall. Sir Kynaston Studd, a member of the Cambridge team which defeated the Australians in 1882, presided over a distinguished gathering of notable past and present cricketers and other prominent persons in all walks of life. In proposing the toast of the evening, coupled with the name of the Jam Sahib of Nawangar, Lord Harris, admitting that his remarks came from an old fogey, deplored the slowness of the Australians’ batting in England. “ Ranji,” in a tactful response, said that if cricket was slower nowadays it was not due tc the batsmen’s desire to make it so, but to publicity, which had become so intense that anybody who dropped a catch or made a “ duck ” was ostracised for the < est of the season. He added that he felt honoured as an Indian in being asked to respond to the toast of an essentially British game. The Empire was largely built- up on cricketing lines, and the introduction of more of the cricketing spirit, such as patience and team work, would help to remove difficulties. He was sometimes tempted to wish that all the political leaders of the Empire were cricketers. Woodfull, in a characteristically charming speech said that England was not easy to beat. The Australians took the game seriously and played it right up to the hilt, but some sections of the Press gave it too much importance in public life. “Wo came to try conclusions at your grand old game on cricket fields,” he said, “not on battle fields.”