CRICKET

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19475, 15 December 1925, Page 4

CRICKET

HAWKE CUP NELSON’S BECOED SCOBE. HEAVY DEFEAT FOB MABLBOROUGH. [Per Press Association.] NELSON, Dec. 14. The Hawke Cup match was concluded to-day in perfect weather conditions. Nelson put on 462 before the last wicket fell, the biggest score yet made in tho Cup contest. A feature of the game was 113 made by A. Biggar, a college boy, who is taking part for the first time in an inter-provincial fixture. He was at the wickets for 116 minutes and gave a splendid exhibition of clean crisp cricket. AL Eden carried his score to 87, playing attractively. The fielding of tho visitors was good but tho bowling was well collared, eight men having a turn at the crease. The innings lasted 4A hours. Further scores are:—M. Eden 87, A. Biggar 113. Kemnitz 31, Newman 10, Sea roll 31, extras 13; total 462. Pearpoint, with 6 for 116 secured tho best bowling figures. With 346 in arrears Marlborough commenced badly, losing Al. Neill, Allardyce and Robson for 7 runs. At the inuch adjournment three wickets were down for 13. Alarlborough were all disposed of for 50, Pearpoint (14) being the only double figure scorer. Bowling: Lines 7 for 32, Newman 2 for 10, Sciarell 1 for 0. Nelson won by an innings and 296 runs. N.Z. TEAM FOR AUSTRALIA SYDNEY, Dec. 14. Correction.—ln tho first innings tho bowling analysis should have read: Alloo no wickets for 22 runs and Dacre none for 22. THE “UMP” A CBICKET A. . OMALY

DICTATOR AND NONENTITY OUR BULWARK OF FAIR PLAY The subject of these few remarks is not a disease, and has no relation to the classic colloquialism, “It fair gives one the ’ump.” He is the great British institution known originally as the umpire, who is of the game of cricket, but not in it. In these days of democracy the umpire holds an anomalous position, in that he is Czar and dictator whom no man may dispute. Further, he is both dictator and nonentity. In the days of old. when knights were bowled and barons used to play, the umpire, in full armour and lord of all he surveyed, was quite in the picture as an autocrat. ‘With the decline of the feudal system and the rise of

cricket as a merry rustic sport, the impire was retained chiefly a; comic relief. The history of cricket in its emergence from the stage of a village green sport, and development first into an Imperial game, is crowded with stories of the umpire, as jester, martyr, and dictator.

I To-day the umpire, wearing the white eoat of a blameless judgment, holds in the hollow of his hand the fate of a nation’s fame. At a nod he may tumble famous batsmen from their high estate, and with a swing, of the arm ! no-ball invincible bowlers into ineffectiveness, and turn the scale of Test matches. The white-coated policeman ol the cricket field, the umpire stands for the law; he draws the line between liberty and license he decides a doubtful delivery, a doubtful catch, a doubtful hit, a doubtful dismissal; he has to watch questionable tactics without allowing personal distate for them to bring a prejudiced decision until they reach the domain of actual unfairness. To Fame Unknown. i However great an umpire may be, it is rarely his destiny to be famous in the measure that actual players of the game are of world-wide repute. For instance, there arc few of the general public here who will not instantly recognise, such names as Hobbs, Sutclif.’e, Tate, \V. G. Grace, Ranjitsinhji and 'Fry as being those of great English cricketers, but how many of the public can call to mind the name of a great English umpire? Local repute for a brief yu-ar or two has been tho portion of a few notably just and hardly spirits who have umpired in various parts ■«’f the Empire, but probably the only umpires who have attained to anything like international repute have been two Australians, in Bob Crockett and Alajor Phillips. It is really a superhuman task which is allotted to the umpire, who has to stand in the field throughout the whole playing time, and to watch closely and critically every ball that is bowled, every hit that is made, every attempt at a catch, and every return from the fieldsmen. He is of the game, but not in it—except when he gives an unpopular decision, and then he is “in” the game in the most undesirable fashion. For some reason he is not counted by the public until then. The. public do not know him by name; they don't want to know him until the incident happens, and then they can find names enough for him without reference to any baptismal certificate. With the public he is either a nonentity, when things are going as they judge right, or, when his decision is displeasing, he is anathema undeserving of any decent name.

Bluffing the “Ump.” Not only is tho umpire placed in this anomalous position by the public, but he has to meet covert hostility from tho players. Captains of sanguine and forceful personality, even such as grace and AlacLaren, have been known to bring the pressure of their personalities on tho umpire at tense moments. Tho responsibility and power given to the umpire by the AI.C.C. law, “the referee’s decision is final,” did not end arguments. Tricky wicketkeepers and bowlers almost welcomed this dictum, for there were some who made a practice of w’aiting for an unexpected turn which just failed to get the batsman napping, and thundering an appeal in an effort to “jump” or bluff the umpire into an unthinking snap decision that he could not reverse. Sometimes a team ...was trained into making such ’ appeals into a chorus for greater effect. I As a matter of fact these tactics succeeded so often that the law was altered, empowering an umpire to change

his decision immediately, if he found he had been led into a wrong snap decision. “Bluffing the ump’’ has consequently just about gone from the game. The Greatest Amateur.

The fact remains that the game could not go on satisfactorily without the umpire. He is a necessity. He must be keen , alert, firm, honest, possessed of a full practical knowledge of the game and of a special theoretical knowledge. The player has all the thrill of the actual contest and the exercise of personal prowess, with moments of rare triumph; the spectator sees all the beauties of a game he loves, and can combine his thrills with incidental arguments and discussions. But the umpire undertakes the fatigue of standing all day in isolation, knowing that it is his part to be at best just nonentity, with always a chance that he may be turned into an object of public derision. Surely he is the greatest amateur of them all, the bulwark of British fair play. As was' mentioned above, one can think at the moment of only two umpires who arc famous in Australasia, yet such is the lack of apreciation of the work of the umpire that their names will not appear in that monument of cricketers, “Wisden’s,” until they arc dead.