The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1933. CRICKET IS A GAME

Southland Times, Issue 22042, 15 June 1933, Page 6

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1933. CRICKET IS A GAME

It is unfortunate, but none the less a fact, that the Marylebone Cricket Club and the Australian Board of Control have taken up roles strongly suggestive of partisans. The M.C.C. will say, of course, that it has been considering the report from the captain and managers of its team; but it was also considering a very definite proposal, however impractical it may be, from the governing body of cricket in Australia, and it was by no means judicious to mingle a reply on the question of “body-line” bowling with a complaint about barracking in Australia. The serious barracking in Australia followed the so-called “body-line” bowling. It is true that the crowds in Australia have always been free in their comments and that'they have disturbed some players; but there is also clear evidence . that Duckworth and even Jardine, whether for their own amusement or' for the amusement of others, incited comment from the loquacious section of the Australian crowd. Most of the barracking is in good spirit, and it is persistent because it cannot be controlled. Moved by what it believed to be unfair tac-

tics, the crowd undoubtedly grew antagonistic, and so the real foundation of the problem is not so much the crowd as .the bowling through which the M.C.C. won the Ashes and the view taken of it by the critics and the public. Unquestionably, if there is a desire to stop the kind of bowling that Larwood used, then the only means to be adopted is to put Larwood out of the game, because as Larwood is bowling within -the laws of the game, any attempt to compel him to alter his style of bowling by means of changes in the rules must affect other bowlers. The idea of declaring Larwood an outlaw reveals the absurdity of the position that has been created by the exaggerated view of his bowling crystallized in the term “body-line.” Larwood is one of the greatest fast bowlers the game has seen, a great bowler because he is not merely fast, and he and Jardine found a chink in the armour of the Australian batsmen. Australians can, and do, lose well. They have shown that on many occasions; but the exploitation of the “body-line” idea and the magnification of some points which should never have reached the public in the form they did, served to play upon the feelings of the crowd to an extent which made the attack appear vicious instead of merely severe. The answer to Larwood and the type of attack developed by Jardine is in the hands of the Australian batsmen, and already enough has been seen to show that that answer is coming. On the other hand,’ there is a department in which some remedial steps can be taken. The idea that a bowler can bump the ball at less than half way, and catapult it so-far over the batsman’s head that he cannot reach it is inimical to cricket, not because it is dangerous, but because it can lead to the bowling of a maiden over of legal wides at a time when the result of a match may depend upon one or two runs. Voce and Bowes both used this type of ball, and it was against the catapult or excessive15' short ball that Hobbs and Warner protested in the previous cricket season in England. Tire rules could be amended to provide that any ball pitched less than half-way by the bowler should be no-balled, and this, it would seem, would effectively stop the high catapulting which is dangerous to the game. And if it is desirable to check the barracking of crowds —which is almost impossible—it is also desirable to check the exploitation of the game by those who participate in it. Excessive publicity, with the consequential magnification of unimportant and private details, help to create an atmosphere which makes Test cricket a trial of gladiators, not of sportsmen. There is another point. While undoubtedly all games are devised primarily for the pleasure of those who participate in them, the audience, large or small, is an established feature of most of our games and the true sportsman of these modern times, recognizing that feature, will give some consideration to the audience and its legitimate desires. No sportsman will ignore an audience which is justly entitled to be present, and if he does anything to show that he has a hearty contempt for the public, he must not be surprised if in these times the public shows that it resents his attitude, and regards him as a poor sport. Behind all this trouble, however, is the fact that too many people are forgetting that cricket is a game, and too many* who persist in reminding us of this fact do so in a manner which suggests exclusiveness, rather than from a hearty desire to spread the pleasure to be derived from the game as widely as possible. There is another thing which must not be forgotten: cricket will outlast Larwood, Jardine, Woodfull, Bradman, the present Board of Control, and those who are now on the committee of the M.C.C., because the game is greater than all of them.