CRICKET CULTURE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 366, 7 March 1932, Page 4

CRICKET CULTURE.

Influence of English Coaches. SOUTIi AFRICAN METHOD. (By LOUIS DUFFUS, of the “Johannesburg Star,” touring with the South African cricket team.) South African cricket to-day is built up directly from the coaching of English professionals. These young fellows playing in New Zealand were taught to put their left foot to the ball in the quaint dialects of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Sussex and other parts of England. In net practices all over the Union sun-tanned “professors” have stood hours of an evening exhorting would-be batsmen ta keep a straight bat. In a certain high school in Johannesburg you cotild have walked down to the busy scene of daily net practice a few seasons ago and heard a

Gloucestershire professional pleading picturesquely across the summer air: “ Put yer helbow hout towards Horange Grove . . . and ’it it ’ard.” Either at school or shortly after leaving, every member of this touring team, from Ilerby Taylor down to the “ baby,” Len Brown, was coached by an English professional. They call them “ birds of passage ” over there. If springtime neglected to announce itself by its annual shower of blossoms, buds and fresh greenness, you could still tell it was cricket season by the arrival of the yearly batch of coaches. I can think off-hand of sixteen who are out in South Africa now. Often there are many more. They land together at Cape Town and disperse throughout the country to schools or clubs in Johannesburg, Durban, Kimberly, Grahamstown, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth. And when autumn comes they band together again and sail off to English sunshine. From a school in Johannesburg one “ pro.” goes home to coach at Winchester College. He moves with the swallows and never sees a winter.

Most of the instructors are engaged by schools. A small percentage are retained by clubs. Occasionally the expenses are borne by two or more clubs and the professional’s tuition shared.

If a good county player cannot be afforded, then often a coach is imported from the Lord’s ground staff. There are two of these in South Africa now. One is Fred Burton, a very successful coach in the Transvaal. He plays in the English minor counties competition for Hertfordshire during our winter. Another is Tregair, employed by a

Durban high school. Bert Wensley, who visited New Zealand, has taught

cricket in Kimberley, the home town of Quinn,-Viljoen and Balaskas. W. R. Hammond, Maurice Tate, Ashdowne, Macauley, Langridge, Brown, Lee, Cooke, Cadman, Newman and Wainwright have all coached in South Africa at various times. George Cox, who T believe also coached in New Zealand, was the first to show ITerby Taylor, as a young man, the wrong and right methods of batting.

In some cases the professional plays with a club in its Saturday afternoon league fixtures, but mostly his job is purely to coach. In the schools the system provides that boys above a certain age are grouped together for net practice and instruction twice weekly. Special attention is paid to the seniors and those who represent the first eleven. In addition, the professional watches the juniors in their games and if a youngster shows talent he is given the privilege of being coached. J. A. J. Christy, one of the most successful batsmen on this tour of Australia and New Zealand, was the pride of at least two English professionals. As a member of the Wanderers Club, Johannesburg, he came under the eye first of George Brown (Hampshire), and later Sam Cadman (Derbyshire), who is now engaged by the club in his fourth successive season. There was a time when Christy used to hurry from his office of an evening to the Wanderers’ net. It was a very rare day when he was not seen diligently following the advice of the “ pro.”

“ I have always been amazed how South -Africa turns out so many good cricketers when they are spread over such long distances,” said Mr Fred Earl, president of the Auckland Association, when the South Africans played their first match. The answer is the English professional. Sometimes he is a good cricketer, but a poor coach. Sometimes he is accomplished at both. Whether there is virtue in inviting him from England or not, he has been responsible for South Africa’s present status in the cricket world.