CRICKET

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11949, 20 May 1933, Page 11

CRICKET

AUSSIE “BARRACK.”

UNPLEASANT INCIDENTS AND SENSE OP THE RIDICULOUS.

In tins chapter on “Barracking,’ R. W. E. Wilinot (Melbourne) says in has recently published book, “Defending tho Ashes” :—• “A section of the crowd ‘in the ouLdi',’. and, it must be admitted with sliauio, occasionally -in the reserves, has eoine to regard it as its inherent right to criticise freely, forcibly, and in tho loudest possible manner, to deride an opponent, to be personal, to bo rude, to hurl insulting epithets across the boundary fence, and generally to become a. public nuisance. Tbo Australian crowd is no respecter oi persons. It admires ..skill even in an opponent, whom it will applaud most heartily, but a moment later will abuse in terms which are as unlair as thev arc misplaced. Even Larwood, whose bowling the crowd had denounced, was accorded ail ovation for h-S batting when be made 98 by brilliant hitting in tho final Test at Sydney, and all around the ground cries (of ‘Bad luck, Larwood !’ were heard when he so narrowly missed Ids century. Australia is not a nation of hooligans There is not 1 per cent pf the crowd which: descends to this form ' of criticism. but unfortunately that .1 P CT cent makes 99 per cent of noise. “The heckling of th’e English captain In Adelaide when England met South Australia in November, the hooting of Larwood when. M oodfull was ~t!mck by a ball .in Melbourne and! again in Adelaide when Oldfield was injured, was senseless and wicked, the lonly excuse being that the crowd, worked up by the. ‘body-lino attack, did! not realise that these particular balls did not come under that category. The applause winch greeted VJArdlne in Brisbane, wlien bo was struck Mu tbo knee when fielding, a bard drive at mid-off, was unwor^y of a nation of! sportsmen. It >vas, hm - ever, '.distinctly to Ithe credit of ties , close to the little group which checied on that occasion that they Pionip 3 suppressed this ebullition. The baifacking of the practice just before the third Test match in Adelaide was disgraceful, and he authorises are to he commended fo having at once taken stops to prevent a recurrence. Equally fepreliensib c was the jeering at Jarduio when in • last Test match in Sydney he was finding difficulty in combating Mho fast and bumpy bowling of Alexan ci, though the crowd saw w the that the Australians were getting little of the in own back. “I think it will bo conceded that tlio barracking is in tlio main goodhumoured, though it must he admitted that it was hot easy to so any hip Wdur in: the .incidents referred to ;It must be remembered, however, that an Australian crowd has a keen sense pf the ridiculous. There m much of Gao caricaturist in .the make-up of tlio Average '.Australian. Mo is .. W|k S eb the funny side of an incident, and to laugh at anything out of the ord Wry 55 . . t Mr Wiihnot then quotes the incident .where in the return. Epglahd v. Victoria ynatch in 1929 Ryder had to ’close Victoria’s innings when, alter Larwood was bright on to Lowe and Ironmonger, .thd latter player twice cut the fast bewlcr liko a champion to the h’bundtryiTliis caused' ISO' much ribAld laugliterj'tlinib tho Englishmen rbfuked to cdTitinuo; addresses by Wbbdfull aria Chapman failing to supYreSri: the 'merriment: Mr V/alrnot dethat' had The . Englishmen entered into the joke ithe laugh would have hecii ori th6m. “Alack of isense of humour caused all Th e bother,