CRICKET Australian Test Players Likely To Receive £800

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 September 1947, Page 5

CRICKET Australian Test Players Likely To Receive £800

Australian test cricketers touring England next year seem assured of a fairly sharp rise in “pay*” The prewar allowance of £6OO a man is likely to.be increased to at least £BOO. The allowance is one of the important questions to be decicted by the Australian Board of Control in the near future.

For the recent tests in Australia the Board, having agreed to increased admittance charges, raised Australian players’ allowances from the pre-war £3O to £4O a match, plus travel expenses and hotel allowance of 30s a day when out of their own State. Even so, the players’, remuneration, considering they provided the show and attracted huge “gates,” could hardly be described as overgenerous. “Out Of Pocket” As one Australian test man put it: “What with being away from business, I was out of pocket over the Tests.” The practice on an Australian tour of England has been to pay players their £6OO as follows: —£100 before sailing for outfitting and other contingencies; £350 in England, but not more than £9O in any calendar month; and the remaining. £l5O on return to Australia subject to a “good conduct” report. In England each Australian player got an extra £2 10s a week for “tram and taxi fares and incidentals.” No - doubt the same procedure will be adopted for the 1948 tour of England, with amounts proportionately larger. Business Acumen Leading Australian cricketers, as a rule, are not lacking in business acumen. Many of them, since the rate of exchange between England and Australia jumped to 25 per cent, in 1931, gained substantially by remitting home part, and in a few cases all, of their £350 received in sterling in England. Any player who remitted the whole £350 home netted a cool £B7 10s in exchange. Don Bradman (South Australia/. Jack Ryder (Victoria) and E. A. (“Chappie’’) Dwyer. (New South Wales) seem certain to be re-ap-pointed test selectors. Bradman will play for South Australia and .Australia next summer, but has so far made no decision about going to England. While he is a test selector or player he cannot, under a board rule, write for newspapers. This is an interesting point, in view of offers he has received.

Next Manager

Two logical candidates for manager of the 1948 Australian team to England are Mr W. H. Jeanes,. board secretary and manager ol the 19J« tour, and Mr K. O. E. Johnson, a New South Wales member of the board, who as flight lieutenant managed the 1945-46 Australian Services side in England, India and Australia, tralia.