THE CRICKET CRISIS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10756, 30 April 1913, Page 3

THE CRICKET CRISIS.

P. F. WARNER'S VIEWS

The- crisis in county cricket at Home continues to provoke warm discussion and the controversy lias become lathei personal. All article by A. G. Steel lias brought P. F. V\ arner out with a vigorous defence. Anything that Mr A. G. Steel writ re 011 cricket is bound to command attention, he writes.

With his suggestion that thero are too many first-class counties and too much first-class cricket 99 out of 100 people will agree, but his remarks about modem batting are, to my mind, inaccurate* and, iu any case, grossly exaggerated. Mr Steel has thought fit to pillory Mr C. B. Fry and myself, and has described our batting aa ''wretched" in style—" leg play ami nothing else," arid implies that our methods "keep away tiie spectators" and aro "spoiling "tho game." It would obviously be most unbecoming in me to attempt to defend nij T own stylo of play, but I venture to suggest that my legs aro neither big enough nor strong enough to resist tho repeated assaults wliicli, according to Mr Steel, they have resisted so heroically. lam lull}' aware of the many deficiencies in my batting —after all, 0110 only does one's best, according to tho amount of natural ability Hoaven has given one—but for Mr Steel to write as ho does about Mr Fry's batting is absurd. _Mr Fry's magnificent straight- driving is the best feature of his splendid game, and I venture to say, that if ho plays an innings of a hundred he does not get hit 011 the legs three times making of it. Again, Mr Fiye innings of 129 for England v. South Africa on a sticky wicket at tho Oval in August, 1907, when the " googlie" bowlers were at their very best is acknowledged by all experts to be one of the masterpieces of modern batting that the world has seen. Now is modern batting dull? Mr Steel says it is, but I could name quite as line a judge of cricket as Mr Steel who tells me that the batting he has seen during the last three years is " quite good enough for him." Is the batting of Hobbs dull, of Woolley, of Mr R. H. Spooner, of Mr F. R. Foster, of Mfr A. Q. Johnston, of others? Or is it only the wretched Frys and Warners who are dull ? We have quite recently defeated the Australians, both here and in Australia, and the South Africans, in. most convincing fashion, and yet there are to be found people only too ready and willing to find fault. There is too much carping criticism to-day. That is one of the greatest evils of modern cricket—that and the gross exaggerations and ignorance of facts. Mr Fry and I are described as "a couple of champion (sic) batsmen engaged for an hour or two on end guarding their wickets chiefly by means of their pads!" One would require the armour-plate of a Dreadnought on one's legs—those poor legs—to do that. One could afford to laugh at these "criticisms" but for the harm they do to the game, and they are at least a poor reward for twenty years' most enthusiastic devotion to first-class cricket. I love cricket as few men love it, and it comes as a shock to be told in cold print that one's style of play is ruining the. game. Mr Steel has" not played in a first-class match for eighteen ye are. During the last twenty years I have plaj'ed more cricket than probably any other man in the world, so that my experience is, at any rate, more modern than that of Mr Steel, aud I say emphatically that cricket is better and more scientifically played to-day than ever it has been before. There is nothing wrong with tho game. There is no need whatever to alter the l.b.w. law, to cover the wicket, or to reduce county matches to two days. What is wanted is: 1. Ten years' quiet and sober government of cricket, for these constant "scares" and "criticisms" do the game much harm and tend to keep away the spectators even more than do 0. B. Fry and P. F. Warner. 2. Fewer first-class counties—e.g., twelve, each playing each. 3. More amateurs. I should like to see at least four in every county team.

4. Not so much money given for winter pay to professionals. Few counties can afford the sums now so voted, and the principle is not a. good one and tends to encourage loafing. 5. The engagement of bands to play, occasionally, at county matches, and a general improvement in the attractiveness and comfort for the spectators at county grounds. One has but to play in Kent to sec how cricket should be run.

6. If there is no play on the first day of a match, the follow-on and declaration of innings rule to apply as if it was a two-day match.

7. Spectators admitted free for the

last three-quarters of nn hour's piny. _ -My time ns an activo cricketer is fast approaching; its end —maybo that end lias 'como alreadv—but my 00:1-

stant pravor is that when .1 become a pavilion critic 1 may look at the game through less jaundicvd spectacles than those of Mr A. G. Stool.