Cricket trad and mod
PERSONAL COLUMN SIMON RAVEN
Now that the dust has settled, let me begin by taking a brief look at the very nasty controversy which preceded the current tour of the West Indies. Brian Close, it may be remembered, was the popular favourite for the captaincy on the grounds that he was 'tough, aggressive and dynamic,' that his 'image' was democratic, and that altogether his was just the kind of personality needed to lead English cricket for- and that altogether his was just the kind of personality needed to lead English cricket for- ward into the New Age. Underneath all this, of course, lay the perennial hankering to spit on the grave of Lord Hawke (or even to tear it up altogether), but this was less evident from what was said on behalf of Close than from what was said (or implied) against his rival, Colin Cowdrey.
For Cowdrey, it appeared, was the Enemy. He stood for the South, for public schools, for the amateur spirit. He was a Newbolt character who believed in playing up and playing the game and all that rubbish. He was fat. He was believed to be rich. He was soft, pampered, indecisive. He was much too well mannered to swear at the spectators and he wouldn't dream of resorting to sharp practice in difficult situations—he wouldn't begin to know how to, poor old thing. In short, he was totally unfit to lead the New England across the Atlantic, and it was only the fuddy-duddy MCC, looking after its own and taking mean advantage of an 'indiscretion' of Close's, that could ever have contemplated such an appointment.
In all this, typically enough, the real issues —the cricketing issues—were largely avoided. In so far as they were discussed, Cowdrey's successes of some years since were ignored and his more recent failures elaborated—no one being fair enough to point out that these could well be due, in part at least, to the sad fact that he was not given a secure commission for the Tests of summer 1966 but was strung along from match to match, a system or lack of it which unsettled his men and placed an intolerable strain on himself. Or again, few people bothered to take notice that whereas Cowdrey is still, on his day, one of the finest batsmen in the world, Close, on the other hand, does not qualify as a player to be in the England XI at all. No. All practical and relevant considerations were subordinated to charges of favouritism and snobbish preference, until things reached such a state of rancour that I began to wonder whether poor Cowdrey might not suffer the fate of other and even better men before him, who have stumbled from the field for ever, driven mad by the malice of the press.
But I should have known better than that. For Colin Cowdrey is a. man of Kent, and in Kent cricket matters a great deal more than modish cant about being abrasive or modern or the sort of leader required by the New Society. It is quite probable, in fact, that Cowdrey, who has classical good sense, didn't . bother to read the papers at all. At all events, he made quiet preparations to take his side to the West Indies, laughed off an unpleasant ill- ness not long before it was time to start, behaved with dignity when confronted with Close (who also behaved creditably) on tele- vision,' and then set out, bottom and money and old school tie and all, with just two inten- tions—the two that with Cowdrey have always been paramount—to play the best cricket he knew how to and to help everyone else to do the same.
And now, if there is one thing which we can say of the tour to date, it is that there have been two superb Test matches. The third has been a bore (more of that in a moment), but the first two were matches full of splendour and peri- peteia, of sudden shifts and unlooked for recoveries, of challenge followed by triumph, of triumph annulled by reverse. Two matches, then, which have been just what cricket matches should be—dramas in four acts. It is suitable that Cowdrey should have distinguished him- self, whether as player or captain, in both of them, because these two matches make a point which is very important to what Cowdrey holds of all things nearest to his heart—the future of cricket.
For what these matches must prove, once and for all, is that cricket, to achieve its most beautiful and stirring effects, needs time. Cricket matches must be long. Yes, yes, I know the Gillette Cup is much more up to date and so on, I know that Youth would much sooner see the ball thrashed round the ground by the Cavaliers for a short afternoon than put up with .the longueurs of a three-day county fixture; I've been told all that seven hundred times and I am quite unmoved by it. For the pleasure of seeing a fine player swat sixes over short boundaries from indifferent bowling is limited and even degrading. That such skill should be wasted on this kind of crude fair- ground exhibition is positively sickening. Such skill belongs where it can help to create the subtle, complex and gradually emerging situa- tions which are the true joy of cricket, which have already made the present tour so memor- able—and which, it cannot be said too loudly or too often, require lime.
But, of course, the answer comes pat. Even if we allow you time, the answer comes, there is no guarantee of the excellence you acclaim. Look, for example, at this third Test just con- cluded. Drama in four acts! Unmitigated tedium : fast bowlers plodding back like cart- horses, batsmen fussing and prodding around like old women with knitting needles, about as much action—in whatever sense—as goes on in a slow day at Stonehenge. Splendour, chal- lenge, peripeteia! You've a better chance of cashing a cheque in a public lavatory than of extracting splendour or peripeteia out of the third Test. And what is more (the answer goes on) the ratio of boring matches to exciting ones is usually far higher than the one in three which we have seen in this series. All through the English summer, for six days a week, the first- class counties grind on and on and on; and just how much excitement ever comes of it? There are a few thrilling results, it is true; but it is no longer feasible to keep the whole grotesque machine groaning away just for them. That's why we're anxious to have fewer and shorter matches. Your system—it belongs back in 1910; it isn't practical, it isn't eco- nomic, it isn't modern.
Well, I suppose not. I can remember only what George Orwell said. Cricket, he said, is an old-fashioned, chivalrous game, full of `forlorn hopes and last-ditch stands'; a garlic, he said, which 'modern-minded people dis- like'; a game which the Nazis forbade when they came to power in Germany. Too in- efficient, of course; not practical, not economic. But what should any of this matter? If enough people take an interest and can scrape to- gether the money to keep first-class cricket running on the present system. then what does it matter what the accountants or the efficiency experts say? Or the general public? Or even Youth? If they don't wish to go to it, they needn't. But let those of us who do wish to go find the money to support the game (as somehow we are finding it) and then sit through all the three-day matches we want to. It's our affair. There will be much boredom in store for us, no doubt; but every now and again there will be something which no one-day knockabout can ever yield—there will be the kind of gut-wrenching, tear-compelling finish which can come only as the climax of the loving and intricate manoeuvres of long minutes, of long hours, of long days.
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