The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1908. THE UNPOPULARITY OF CRICKET

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13532, 29 February 1908, Page 4

The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1908. THE UNPOPULARITY OF CRICKET

The financial results of the last two test matches seem' to argue a considerable decline of public interest, in these contests. The other day it was officially announced from Melbourne that the fourth test returned the Victorian Association a profit of fivepence, which would be converted! into a slight loss when the Association provided the twelfth man in the Australian team with his ,iegalia of office. The Sydney Association, however, lias fared worse, for to-day we hear that it will have to find something like £2OOO to make up the Board of Control's guarantee for the English team. It was onJy to be expected that the last match, the result of which was immaterial to the fate of the " ashes," would not draw the " gate " that might have been looked for if it had lieeu the " conqueror " in the series of five games, but the comments of some of the Australian papers lead, one to the conviction that even apart from the fact that the Australians had established their supremacy before the final move was' made upon Sydney, popular interest, in the matches has been deadened by their tendency to develop into mere trials of endurance, as one of the London journals recently complained. " The things that make cricket interesting to spectators," said the Melbourne " Argus" in commenting upon the fourth test match, " ate still energy and keenness." Each of these qualities, it says, at least as far as Victoria is concerned, are harder to find now than they were in days when players had not yet* sunk their individuality lwneath formal rules of tactics. Our contemporary is especially severe on the theory that it is always good cricket for a batsman to set up a stonewall in order to break down the attack of a dangerous bowler. " A flash of bold hitting," if says, " with the score mounting on the. board, alarms the fielding captain, shakes his bowlers, and rattles his field more than does an hour of machinelike slowness. The total oT runs is the same, and the next, batsman goes in heartened, not drained of vigour by tedious waiting. On a. sticky wicket, where to hold \\\) his end till six o'clock was the supreme duly of each batsman, what mere

formalist in cricket would have, had the audacity to steal ' impossible' runs like Oh in Hill (in the fourth test match)? Hi., ho'hlni'.™ shifted confidence, from on* side to the. others. Such plans may sometimes mean melancholy sacrifice, but, in cricket, sum**; is tifill (<> be won by the men who take risks and scorn safety tactics." lint whatever may be the effect of Clem Hill's methods upon the fortunes of a game, there r.ni be no doubt that they have far inure attraction fo,r the crowd than the Bonnerman style—batting without, run-getting—and if) seems that the lack of incident, not, only in lesl, ma+clies, but in interelub and interstate ganwe. has gone a long' way towards turning the Australian public in the direction of other forms of sport. in the anxiety to secure respectable averages, bowlers and batsanen alike have gone in for " safe" play, until, in the language of ou.r Melbourne contemporary, they have become as unimaginative, as uninspired, as dry-as-dust a.s a cramming teacher who k after "payment by results." At the end of a season, such a batsman may emerge with an average in the thirties or fourtie.s>, showing him among the first flight of cricketers, when, as a facti, he is " ;t, mechanical adjunct of his team, no more fit for great oecasioiib than a drillbook geueial." Of the same kidney is the correct bowler, who can avoid being ignominiously lashed, but never chows any real destructive energy. " When these two machines face each other," concludes the writer, " cricket, is dull indeed. The precise catapult pilches its ball against the dead .stone wall. I iy-and-by one or the other is worn out. So is everybody else." Apparently there has been a. good deal of truth in this ciiticisni and conclusion, and the test matches have not been the financial success they would have been if the public taste had received more consideration. Of course international contest." are not played purely as popular entertainments, but as .long as they depend for their existence on public patronage, they will have to provide some of the excitement which the patrons demand, and they can do that without spoiling the game.