A CRICKET SPEECH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17949, 29 November 1932, Page 9

A CRICKET SPEECH

MR P. F. WARNER SPARKLES BRILLIANT AFTER-LUNCH EFFORT MELBOURNE, Nov. 16. Going in after lunch yesterday Mr P. F. Warner treated the Legacy Club to as fine a treat on his*'favorite subject, cricket, as he ever gave the ■crowds when runs were flowing most fluently off his hat. As an orator Mr Warner has the most graceful and effortless strokes. His easy, subtle style renders even a common-place object vivid and glowing. It was. a cocktail of a speech, flavored with ripe reminiscences, sharpened with a lively turn of wit, warmed with delicate compliments and mellowed with a deep worldly wisdom, and at the end lie was acclaimed by tho largest gathering that over attended one of the luncheons at tin 1 Victoria.

Mr Warner followed no order or sequence. At one moment he was in Whitehall, saddened to see the placards I hat announced the death of if he nonpareil Victor Trunrper. In the midst of the grimmest war in history England paused to mourn the death of this matchless Australian batsman. As if in apology for his display of emotion, Mr Warner .told his audience “he felt in his hones” that they, too, loved cricket .almost ns much as he did him* self—: a nd he was an unashamed fanatic. Then, running down the time machine, Mr Warner was away back at the Oval. It was 1882, and proud England was aghast at the prospect of defeat at the hands of: W. L. Murdoch’s team; After that tragedy, when Grace failed and England lost by seven runs, sporting England went into mourning. He vouched for it that a man lie lcew wore a band of black crepe on his arm for three weeks after the humiliation; A few days later the “Pink Un” came out with an obituary notice “to the memory of English cricket.” “The body,” it announced, “will be cremated aiid the ashes taken hack to Australia.” That year an English team toured Australia, and after an inconclusive test series, whose results were debatable to this day, was presented with ashes, which were still preserved at Lord’s ground in an urn. TEST PROSPECTS

life ventured to say, went on Mr Warner (returning to 1932), that England would live on the cricketing news this winter. Why, if the scribes could have had their way there was. not a movement of the team on the ship that would not have been chronicled. He had demurred ,at that. “ Who was going to 'win the tests?” He would not be so rash as to prophesy. Not much reliance could be placed on (ho early victories. The Australian team drawn up in full battle order was (iff per cent, stronger than a State side. The Englishmen were a strong, determined team, and he would let it go at that." : With one of his rapid changes Air Warner was in New Zealand, encouraging the wily Bosanquet to develop liis crude googjy ball, and being told it was “absolutely immoral” to do so. But an excellent judge of the game advised him (Mr Warner) to take “Bo'sey” to Australia. That “legbreaking off-break” might win a test, bo said, and so it did. Mr Warner fluttered for a moment, without alighting, on the two B’s—Bradman and barracking—then turned a Boswell s pencil on W. G. Grace, and invoked the shades of Julius Caesar and Nelson. If either the Roman general or the English admiral wore 'to come back to life, he contended, they would soon make themselves great leaders, though without knowledge of shells and torpedoes and tanks and torpedo boat destroyers. And so it would be with Grace.