BAD INFLUENCE?

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22197, 6 December 1946, Page 8

BAD INFLUENCE?

CRICXET_ GIANTS ENGLISH CRITIC’S VIEW PLAY IN AUSTRALIA The suggestion that Australian cricketers have been ruined by the play of D. G. Bradman and W. J. O’Reilly is offered by an English sports writer, Trevor Wignall. An article in which he advanced the theory was published in a recent issue of the London Sporting Record. “It is debatable whether Bradman, who knocks all bowlers off their length, ancl O'Reilly, breaker of batsmen’s hearts, have adversely affected the i standard of their country's play”, I writes Mr. Wignall. ; “Do giants breed dwarfs? I believe I that the Tests will prove this to have been the case in Australia.” : Told in Sydney about Wignall’s idea, W. J. O'Reilly commented:— I "Wignall’s remarks are baloney—utter nonsense. I don’t feel that I've broken any young player’s heart or ruined the standard of batsmen.” Tribute to O’Reilly Other comments, published by the Sydney Sun were : j V. Y. Richardson, Test player, who captained the Australian team in South Africa in 1935-36: “On the face of it, Wignall's remarks are utterly ridiculous. How can he foretell the future — the Tests have’t been played yet. What evidence has he got to go on?” L. C. Hynes, former N. S. W. opening bowler, who once got Bradman for “a duck”: —“I don’t agree with Wignall. I didn’t find Bradman broke my heart, i I always used to feel he was a challenge to me. “Playing with O’Reilly, I always found him helpful and encouraging to other bowlers. I can’t see that the j standard of batting has fallen in Aus- j tralia when we have got players like liassett, Miller, Brown and Barnes, j Morris seems to me to be the best lefthander since Warren Bardsley.” The “Sixteen” Phrase J. H. Fingleton, former Australian opening batsman and author of the provocative book about bodyline, “Cricket Crisis": “If I lived to be 100 I’d never bring myself to comment about anything Wignall said. I don’t know if he’s got any personal bias against Australia but I always remember his phrase about the ‘sixteen’.” Fingleton was recalling the 1934 Test tour of the Australians. When the Australian team reached Colombo Wignall joined the ship to travel to England with it.

The Australians did not enjoy talking to him much, so he sent a message

iiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiniiiniiiiiiit •1111111111 mi iiiiiiniiiiiiiiituiin i to the paper for which he was then working calling the team “the silent, sneering sixteen.” Later, in England, Wignall published a story saying that Brown and Bromley had had a bare-knuckle fight because Brown had been chosen for one Test and Bromley had not. Australian players said the story was totally untrue. R. S. Whitington, special cricket correspondent for the Sydney Sun, who was opening batsman for the Australian Services team which toured Britain, said that Wignall must have been short of something to write about. Bert Oldfield said: “I don’t agree at all. Bradman and O’Reilly have added a genuine interest to the game. Prospective cricketers and young boys have been fired to point of action by their example.”