No Physical Strain In Test Cricket

Southland Times, Issue 23782, 1 April 1939, Page 15

No Physical Strain In Test Cricket

The suggestion that a cricket tour through England is over-strenuous is buncombe. It is not a very trying ordeal to survive a trip to England with an Australian XI, says Arthur Mailey, in The Daily Telegraph, Sydney. As a fact, prayers spend so much time in shirt factories, pottery works, or on the golf links, that they cannot possibly blame cricket for their tiredness.

I have seen players (myself included) gulp a quick’ breakfast, rush off to a clothing factory, and watch the dull business of trousers being made until it is time' to go to the ground. If the pitch is under water they go to the golf links, and walk four or five miles. That does not suggest physical tiredness. It must be remembered that bowlers spend only about half the match on the field, or three SJ-hour days a week. It is not nearly as strenuous as tram-conducting or bricklaying. Those Englishmen who played against the Australians last year are now touring South Africa, where travelling conditions are primitive compared with those in England. After the South African tour, the Englishmen will go back to England and begin another cricket season. There is a certain mental strain attached to Test cricket, but there is no physical strain whatever to a man in condition.