CRICKET V. THE REST

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 143, 21 May 1925, Page 6

CRICKET V. THE REST

OUR SUMMER SPORTS CON-

trasted.

By Basil Macdonald Hastings, in the London Evening Standard, A long, lean boy, wearing one pad on his loft leg, hooked the long-hop of a small fat boy into the deep grass. 1 happened to be standing near the deep grass and saw the bull fall. When the fielders ran up they asked me to say where it went, but I thought this unfair and that the batsman should be allowed to run his six. He did, and then the cry of “lost ball” went up, enabling him to rest. Again I was asked where the ball was, but now X could not say, as Iliad been excitedly counting the batsman’s runs. The fielding side then did something which reduced my age by thirty years. They lay down in the long grass and rolled and rolled till one of them felt the ball beneath his body. Have you not done that as a boy It brought back to me the very touch and scent of long-forgotten c ays. Long, dry grass on a bank that descended to n rail; petals of the poppy scattering before the rush of white flan celled legs; the roll in the hay-smell which cools the mouth as it is breathed out; the contact with the bright red leather object; with its fascinating seam; the joy of hurling it wicketwa -ds with a flick of the strong, young wrist; the stroll back with a stem of grass hanging from the mouth; the hitch-up of the trousers; the bending forward for the next stroke of the batsman ; the tinkle of a touched stump; “all out,” and then the taste of pop, the smell of heart-cakes. “O, my Horn iy and my Barlow long ago.” THOSE OTHER GAMES. Cricket is so very much England that I read of the popularity of lawn tennis and golf with something of the shamo and resentment we all would have felt if the Germans had invaded Us. Absurd to condemn these pranks out-of-hand, for they afford great pleasure to the Indies, the knook-shy, the elderly, the defective, and, above all, to foreigners whose birthright is not cricket. One notes with' deep relief that the French are the champion lawn tennis players and that an American is the champion golf, or outdeor tiddleywinks player. Let us hope that these championships will always lie held by foreigners, for so long shall we knovv that the best of the linglisi are loyal to .the English game. A sadness, however, must fall upon the souls of those who watch the weekend players of summer gimds other than cricket. So many of them are young. A little plain speaking from a father, a warning at on 2 of those moments when warnings are heeded, and all might have been well. That young man standing there in that dreadful uniform, doomed to carry a coach-boot full of distorted walkingsticks, might now be in white flannels diving down in the slips at one end and running like a hare after deep-field drives at the other. He might be a pride and a joy; instead he is a blight and a confusion. Gentle but firm advice when younger might tiavo saved him from those horrible trousers, which golfers adopt meekly as the badge ol their shame.

CONCERNING PLUS FOURS. When I view the attire known as “plus fours” I am remind 3d of the Jewish gaberdine. The fact that in the middle ages Jews weri forbidden to engage in handicrafts tended to stereotype a form of dress unfitted tor manual labour. Similarly, the golfer, conscious of the sorriness o; : his chosen pastime, deliberately chose a hideous costume which would mark him out from others. He says through the medium of his dress: “I an a goiter. If you speak to me, you spiak at your peril. 1 will bore you with my fatuous tales of stymies and putts a id bunkers. I know I ought not to be a golfer and a bore, but at least I admit it. Therefore, do not jeer at me, for I give you the excuse to avoid me. If you despise me, remember that I assert to my mortification.”- One can only pity and pass by and there is surely nothing snobbish in a sigh for what might have Because cricket is so wonderful and so essentially the game without which the British Empire must 'all, it behoves us all to keep a jealous eye upon its most public displays. The boys are all right, whether in the school playing fields or at the lamp-post in the street. Can you’, by the way, watch boys playing at a lamp-post without a tug at your heart? That unsuitable ball, that travesty of a bat, that tearcompelling pitch! The little chaps have all the right instincts and nobly they attempt the game without its proper paraphernalia. E.ow dearly one would like to found a Society for the Provision of Bats and Balls for Children, the S.P.B G\, ai d how usefully would one thereby nerve ones country. Now you could not. collect money to-provide ragamuffins with golf clubs'or rackets without making yourself a public laughing stock. Club cricket appears to be as healthy as ever, and played whole-heartedly for the game’s sake, but when we contemplate the greatest games Oi all, there is distinct reason for perturbation. Personally I dislike all lest Cricket, and I know therj are many like me. It is always a test and a tribulation. In the first place most of those whom you and I think indispensable players are omitted, in the second place there is rarely one of these g 'eat games without some unpleasantness caused by a beano-blighter (of Mrs Leverson: a person who blights beanos) and, in the third place, county cricke ; is thinned and rendered unrepresentative. The man who would prefer to Bit down and watch England play the South Africans in preference to a tussle between two sporting sides such as Leicestershire and Somerset is a cricketlover whom I do not understand. Over all Test matches hangs the gloomy cloud of bellicose competition, the same sort of shudderful atmosphere that one experiences at an Association football match for “points.” Tho gladiatorial mantle .does not hang well from a cricketer’s shoulders. True county cricket is played for points,’but the ugly fact ii rarely evident. The championship table is a thing that was thrust on ccunty cricket rather than instituted by it, and the crazy statistics do not blend comfortably with the game of games. The M.O.C. constantly changes the methods of scoring these evil points, and in recent years the ns have got into some terrible tangles. The more absurd the method of reckoning the more all good cricketers lejoice. They know that you cannot devise an ideal method of reckoning supremacy among cricket elevens because the game is such that no side may claim supremacy at it, so much depending on weather and fortune.

THAT CHAMPIONSHIP TABLE. Let the M.C.C. producj nev,' rules for counting every season, and the happy dav is bound to da vn when the

county championship table will disappear from the newspapers followed by tho mocking laughter of everyone who lias given his heart to the game. A certain headmaster once honoured me by inviting my opinion on a project of his for substituting lawn tennis for cricket in the' second half of the summer term. He held that at cricket so many of tho hoys were unoccupied for long periods, and he was attracted evidently by the activity of the lawn tennis game. I told him that I thought such an arrangement would be a tragedy for the school. Lawn tennis is worse than useless for tho purpose of moulding character. Let men play it by all means if they must, once their characters are formed by the magnificent discipline of cricket, hut Heaven forbid that we should ever become a race addicted to a game which exploits individualism to tiie utter neglect of the splendid code of sides. I told what 1 knew of the fanatical follower of lawn tennis, and rejoice to say that in that particular school the game is still kept in its proper place. No one nurtured on cricket coidd bail to have been sickened by a recent incident at Wimbledon, by no means the first or last of its kind. A player, judging the umpire’s decision as to a certain point to be wrong, deliberately hit the next service out of court in order to nullify the effect of his decision. And the lawn tennis gallery actually applauded. Just imagine what would happen if a cricketer attempted to defy an umpire’s decision. Why, if he hut criticise it all his fellows are filled with a deep sense of shame that lie should so disgrace the game.

lawn tennis effects. Lawn tennis is a gloriously active exercise, but it is at present without discipline, and therefore produces a none too pleasantly egotistic type. It is a game that calls for no team work, nor personal sacrilice, and it provides unfortunate scope for affectations. Its attraction to a certain type is due probably to the fact that it can be played strenuously without any personal risk. Golf, of course, is not. a game. A genuine game calls for conflict, and it is essential that the opponents be able to interfere with each other’s schemes. But we must not be too hard on golfers. They are humble; remember their trousers. Cricket is not only a game but a code of honour. Cricket fields are the training grounds for decency, self-sup-pression and simplicity of life. You will never persuade mo that many of these gold-braided .Socialists were brought up on cricket. What a splendid thing it would be for England if we could start, them playing now. There is always hope for a man if ho can be got to roll for a lost ball in the long grass.