CRICKET
Games v. GAMES
CRICKET, strictly speaking, is not one game but two. There is that played by village, club and county, and there is Test Cricket. No danger of confusion arises, the only approach by one to the other being Lancs v. Yorks on a Bank Holiday, and then it is no more than a hesitant advance, or a temporary nervous atrophy. Some, indeed, argue that an English test team should be composed solely of northerners plus Hammorh-1, since the northern counties understand the grimmer game, and play it. well. Nor will it readily be forgotten how close were the Australians to defeat by Yorkshire this year. That last-minute drop of rein prevented a chorus of crowing.
On the loth of this month the last Test match opens at the Oval; " Four Days, or to a Finish" as the fixture list says. Some will remember a similar phrase ; " Three Years, or the Dura- tion." A great deal of hot air and pungent prose will be spouted in two hemispheres about the result, and the question will be asked ; " What lessons can be drawn, 8cc." The answer is, all the usual lessons, which are as follows : (i) that Bradman, despite his modest remark that he considers it more of a distinction to play at Wimbledon than in a Test match, is the finest batsman yet born, a contention which anyone with eyes, memory and an open mind can support ; (2) that Tests have become as much a question of stars as of teams, in this respect following the films ; (3) that since they are in essence an Australian sport, they might just as well be played as the Australians want them, timeless, with eight-ball overs, and the full stem programme ; (4) that English talent is there in plenty, but suffers too often from stage-fright ; and (5) that we should never allow ourselves to treat the Tests as religiously as our opponents. English counties, as Mr. C. B. Fry says, would survive their abolition, and the game might be all the better for an armistice or a cessation. Imperial relationships would certainly be improved.
The more ordinary game has been exciting enough this year for the most jaded spectators. They have seen a Middlesex eleven strong enough for at least hopes of the championship. Lancashire is full of talent. Yorkshire, as a joke, have turned Leyland into a highly successful slow bowler. Kent can still produce good amateurs. Sussex have a giant in Mr. H. T. Bartlett. Leicestershire are full of shocks and surprises. North- amptonshire should be awarded an engraved spoon for unsuc- cessful pluck. Essex, at full strength, have some of the best bowling in the world. Everywhere the game flourishes, simply because of a rise of youth, and because there is a spirit of enterprise to give it scope. The doldrums of the 'twenties are gone : professionals forget their averages and, in short, the county fixtures go with a swing. Despite the Tests, cricket the game is alive, and it will be healthy so long as there are young men who like the feel of willow against a hard ball, and who are prepared to earn their living in a fashion nearly as dangerous as footballing, skating, or driving a car. Granted an era of peace, wise handling, and a reasonable conservation of energy, some of them may still be playing in 1968—but not in Tests. (Barnes, once the best and now the oldest first-class bowler in the game, is still, at sixty-six, crashing the stumps in Shropshire.) And now, as if to give point to the chief lesson of the 1938 Test series, Sir Pelham Warner has announced in The Times that he considers Bradman the world's greatest batsman, a heartening statement from one who remembers Grace. There is much compensation in knowing that one lives in an age of at least a few giants, that they are not the exclusive property of the past. When veterans themselves admit it, youth will _ begin to think that their elders are after all capable of reason: In the meantime, before the season ends, there are some salty festival games in prospect, in which age and youth will continue their perpetual struggle, this time in a spirit of seemly levity. Farewells will be made, batsmen will bowl and bowlers bat, runs will come at one a minute and upwards, and the game, so far from tailing off into a spiritless conclusion, will end with a bang and a cheer, and with the thought of an African tour to hearten some of those still on the threshold of their greatness. Nor is the county championship yet finally booked for the north, though it seems as if only a miracle could prevent it. However boring this may be to Londoners, when it comes to pure merit Mr. A. B. Sellers and his stalwarts do indeed know
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