TEST CRICKET.

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 9 April 1934, Page 4

TEST CRICKET.

A contemporary, commenting upon recent cable news announcing Jaxdine’S retirement from test cricket, states, “The fact is that test cricket has been allowed to assume an altogether false 1 importance and, despite w'orld-wide interest in the test matches, it is doubtful whether they do the game, as a game, any real good. To the contrary, it is more likely that being played as regularly as they now are and in the desperate spirit which they seem to 1 engender, they do a great deal of harm/, not onlp to the game itself, but also to the relations between the people who are the partisans of the .teams.” There' will be few people in New Zealand who' will disagree with the above view. In this .country, where there is no striving for world honours, the game is played and enjoyed in a spirit of detachment which is impossible for the majority of Australians to achieve and we are thus! capable of obtaining a clearer view of the real value of test matches than our cousins across the Tasman. We need not, on this account, take credit to ourselves • our views are moulded on moderate lines simply because we play the game only moderately well at our best, and are thus protected by ou,r own' mediocrity from losing our sense of proportion. Nevertheless, the “leg theory” controversy caused not a little dismay in- this country, which has a high regard for both parties to the dispute, and already feelings of uneasiness are being aroused here, as well as in England and Australia, regarding the outcome of the forthcoming tour of England 'by an Australian team. A section of the sporting Press and a section of tho ‘ ‘spurting public” in both countries must be blamed very largely for keeping the fires of ill-feeling alive. It i/4 not a pleasant spectacle in any country to watch opposing sportsmen being induced by partisans to. forget that the! game, afer all, is the main thing—and when this happens in British countries' to British players there is good reason 1 for dismay. There is no- reason to quarrel with Jardine’s decision not to play;' 1 indeed, he is to be commended for assisting the authorities out of an awkward situation. If the cricketers are left alone, 'to play the game in their mCn way, it should be possible for followers all over the Empire t!o obtain' their thrills this year unaccompanied by regrets.