CRICKET IN INDIA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 28 December 1926, Page 8

CRICKET IN INDIA

ENTERTAINING SIDELIGHTS ON

THE GAME

The captain of the M.C.C. team in India (Arthur Gilligan) has already run up against a traditional feature of Lie game in Britain’s most populous overseas possession, viz., play on Sundays. Gilligan has flatly declined to - play matches on the Sabbath day, somewhat to the surprise of his hosts, to whom Sun.dav cricket is just as much an accepted thing as Saturday afternoon sport in .other parts of the Empire. The recent visit to Now Zealand ol the Indian Army hockey team served to show that in games calling for quicktjcfs uyo aml wrist, the. wily Hindu excels. Cricket- is another game which limls favour with Britain’s ■ smoky-hued brethren, and away back about- thirty or fortv years ago tlie first- Indian crickG ( tonm pair! its respects to Hit* sahibs of the game in England, llioy weie Parsees, or fire worshippers, front Bombay which is still one of the mam strongholds of the game in India. This ycai' the big quadrangular torniiament between Europeans, Parsees, Hindus and Mohammedans was played in September. The games were- all very close, the' Hindus defeating the Europeans in the final b.v 11 runs,' much to the disgust of tlie Parsees, who, next to performing the coup do grace themselves, would have- liked nothing better than to see their Hindu rivals taken down a peg or two. There is no love lost between the two races, and at times the behaviour of tlie less sporting of the spectators been partial in tlie extreme. That is to express the matter mildly.

QUAINT DOINGS In the early days of the game, when the natives, were gaining their “cricket legs,” one could understand a successful side practically insisting. that the losers should make a written acknowledgment. of their defeat in the winning team’s score book. That was all above board, but tlie same could not be. said of the action of- batsman who, when dismissed lor a small score, retired to the tent, disguised himself, and wenF in again, hoping the deception would not be noticed. ■Occasionally the ruse was detected, and then would follow a scene of no ordinary nature. After one such exposure. a leading Bombay paper naively asked : “If all is fair in love and war, whv should it not be so in cricket also?”

Such procedure, one is glad to believe, lias tiow become unknown ; but the baser element of the spectators still distinguishes itself, at- times in’a. manner which seems almost too strange to be true. As recently as last December two incidents' occurred during the final game of the tournament, Europeans v. Hindus, ■ivhich read more like, fiction than fact. Hughes-Hallett. in his first innings, received a .note saying, “Hit out or get out,.”'' .Thinking it. was a message from hi- skipper, 'he' got out a little later, only to discover, when he reached the mviliori, that it had been a- stupid hoax.

Later, whilst, the Hindus were playing their great' game in the fourth innings, ah Ingenious spectator endeavoured to handican'the batsmen bv reflecting light'on to their eyes off a small mirror! After such experiences, one is tempted to ask ; “What-do- they know of cricket who only England know?” There can be pn doubt that during recent years the standard of native rrmkct lias improved generally, and possibly both* the Parsees and Hindus will put up a good -fight against the M.C.C. 1 team. M.anv will be interested, to see how the Parsees will fa>-e. for they can claim jo have beaten all three English sides which have so- far m sited Tndin—(lie fate Oenrqo Vernon's. Lord Hawke’s, and tlie Oxford University -An then tics.