English Batsmen s Wasted Chances

Northern Advocate, 1 February 1947, Page 6

English Batsmen s Wasted Chances

CARDUS TELLS OF

(Received 10 a.m:) i ADELAIDE, Ihis Day. IN conditions in which batsmen would wish to live iorever, England has again played an unconvincing innings after a solid first-wicket stand by Hutton and Washbrook. Somehow the team is unable to turn advantage to profit, either at the wicket or in the field. , England lost ground when the steady Australian attack was probably fortifying itself, mainly by the knowledge that the Adelaide turf is as durable as it is docile.

Edrich, Hutton and Hammond lost their wickets in three-quarters of an hour after tea, all well and truly beaten. An hour of resistance by Compton and Hardstaff, the last hour of the day, was as austere to watch as no doubt to perform; all in all, the English batsmen, once more, have wasted an opportunity to score heavily, and, for once in a while, to enjoy themselves and give enjoyment to others; for apparently everybody in Australia is ready to approve and applaud some really tine cricket by England. The day was perfect summer, the sky as blue as a lagoon and the ground a cricketer’s dream, with the spires ol the cathedral reminding the toiling bowlers of the uses of faith and the consolations of religion. CUSHIONED WICKET On the cushioned wicket no accomplished batsman needed to take precautions against anything except gross errors of judgment on his own part, or failing eyesight and strength. Lindwall and Miller attacked in the burning noon with an almost superstitious trustfulness in the demonic powers which are supposed to reside in a new ball, and for a while both Hutton and Washbrook seemed to collaborate in so far as they put uncertain bats in front of their pads. But the ferocity of Lindwall and Miller was like the ferocity of infantrymen who chai'ge at sandbags with bayonets and support themselves by bloodthirsty passions in which they do

himself succumbed, and this major disaster was caused by a ball from McCool, which created the illusion of extra pace alter pitching. Thus Hutton was leg before, six runs from his hundred, with the total 196 after four hours of almost unrelieved hard and responsible labour. HAMMOND COMPLETELY BOWLED In McCool's next over Hammond was nearly caught it square leg from a high, savage, and not accurately timed pull, and in the following over by Toshack Hammond* played across a good length, and was completely bowled. So. after all, England again was afflicted on a day when hopefulness in any bowler's breast could be described as even a naive virtue. At once the Australians tightened the field: two short legs crouched with intent to persuade Compton and Hardstaff that Toshack, left hand over the wicket and not spinning, was really terrible and the height of futility to try obstinately to cope with. ON NINEPINS And for a while Compton and Hardstaff were on ninepins with short, last l second pushes and dabs with next to no back lift of the bat. Still they prevailed or endured to the close: and there was a latent spirit in Compton’s innings which surely will tomorrow come again to its own.

not really believe. STUMPS MERE FORM Few balls rose higher than the stumps, which, by the way, served none but a formal purpose: they might well have been survivals from some earlier period of cricket’s evolution and now as obsolete and as non-func-tional as the little tee of the human foot. The fieldsmen in the Australian slips bent down and held cut their hands, not so much expecting as supplicating catches; they were almost as obsequious in these gestures as beggars of Baghdad: we could almost hear them saying: “Alms, for the love of Allah.”

lIUTTTON’S DUCKINGS Miller occasionally hurled a bumper at Hutton, who invariably ducked low at the very sight of it, though pace and length were ideal for the hook stroke: in fact, it is because of the challenge of this kind of ball that the hook stroke came into existence; from no other ball could it have been practised and perfected. A straight drive by Hutton, a brilliant square cut and a. graceful oildrive by Washbrook, were the only hits before lunch which did not escape close attention.

Fifty-eight runs were dutifully made in 90 minutes, but, though the batting was pinched and wintry, England’s innings during this important preludial period suffered no fatality, though several times each batsman moved gingerly as though not yet happy or confident.

CENTURY COMES UP After the interval the stand for the first wicket emerged at once from the embryonic stage; strokes now could be heard as well as seen; a slashing square drive from Washbrook clove the air on the off-side, where deep backward point leaped at the flung line of the ball with the action of a man jumping to a trapeze. At 3.15 the century had been rounded, and gaps began to appear in the Australian barbed-wire netting of the field.

McCool, Johnson and Dooland endeavoured by changes of flight and pace to circumvent the drowsy turf, but their disguises were more or less as grease paint and false whiskers and noses in glaring sunshine, and quickly detected in the act.

COMFORTABLE PITCH So comfortable was the pitch that a batsman was free to change stroke by perceptible alterations of position: we could have marked them “one, two and three,” as in a diagram. So the afternoon passed by; the arms of the bowlers circled, the bats-'' l men responded with the expected professional formulae; the fieldsmen changed over every eight balls, the crowd watched and waited and once or twice, when McCool got past Hutton's bat, excitement was simulated, also by habit. The sky was without a cloud and the distant hills, so clear that they seemed to be near, were transfixed in their sweeping range and silence while an inverted moon came into the blue above the cathedral’s two spires. TALLON’S ETERNAL VIGILANCE It was at this moment of rotating peacefulness that Dooland achieved admirable spin, which found the edge of Washbrook’s bat; Tallon seized the catch wide and as the ball sped upward.

His vigilance in such circumstances must be described as eternal. Washbrook and Hutton scored 137 together in three hours, Washbrook 65, Hutton 69. • Dooland deserved his wicket, for he used flight and persisted in spinning his fingers, whether or not the turf aided it or rendered it null and void; he was an artist for art's sake. What is more, he entirely defeated and morally bowled Hutton at 72. In the 105 minutes between lunch and tea, England added 91, Hutton 47 of them out of a total of 49, obtained in some three and a-quarter hours.

BATSMEN HAUNTED The easier the wicket, the slower the scoring, and the more haunted our contemporary batsman by the spectral possibility of his getting out, Just after 4.30 Edrich drove Dooland for a masculine four to the off, and in the same over he returned a ball, which Dooland caught and threw high into the air, as though happy beyond belief. It was probably a cleverly held back ball. a bowler’s rallentando, which Edrich played too soon and- too hard.

Or, maybe, it was merely one ol those accidents that mercifully occur on absurdly over-preoared pitches. McCOOL GETS HUTTON But Dooland bowled well. When Hammond came in, acclaimed grandly, he snicked Dooland by the skin of his bat, amid sounds of hysteria, one of those strokes a batsman runs tor only after, he is brought back to his senses by an awareness to the fact that his partner is halfway down the pitch, and that all is well so far. But at five o'clock exactly Huttou