SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 169

Report by Richard Usborne Readers were invited to describe in cricket terms (and criticise) ik Grecian Urn, Dickens' Bleak House, the Mona Lisa, a primrose bY a river bank, the Milky Way, a country churchyard.

Not many entries, and not very good ones. Perhaps the strong cricketing images are better when you come across them at random than if you ask for them to be forced. Neville Cardus, whose Style lies heavy over many of the entries, was not the first to flicker to and fro in his images when describing cricket. William Kerr Wrote of: George Hirst, not yet a ghost, substantial, His off-drives mellow as brown ale, and crisp Merry late cuts, and brave Chaucerian pulls; Waddington's fury and the patience of Dipper; And twenty easy, artful overs of Rhodes, So many stanzas of the Faerie Queen.

, But this competition was to get entrants to describe other things in terms of cricket, not cricket in terms of other things. The country churchyard and Mona Lisa were those most frequently attempted. I liked P. D. Nairne's opening over on the primrose:

For me the primrose always goes in first wicket down for Spring. First in the woods there is the snowdrop, bravely facing the keen fury of January's new ball; next comes the violet; and then, with the snowdrop gone and the violet not long at the wicket, the primrose opens its long innings.

The Rev. R. Y. Holmes was good on the Milky Way: The Milky Way reminds me of all the dropped catches of my cricket career. The So-called dark areas are the seasons when there was no cricket, such as the war years. If I try to dismiss this idea from my mind, the Milky Way at once becomes the scene of one of those cricket matches commonly plated in Samoa, where the number of players is unlimited and all are on the field at the same time. Our sun and planets are taking part in the game, too. Perhaps the nebulae are just cricket balls, hit with tremendous force, from some quasi-Samoan field, travelling to some boundary the distance of which is unknown to anyone.

Edward Blishen on the Mona Lisa: The smile is a Bradman's: she comes, we feel, from some double century achievement. In what nets such poise was developed, we cannot tell. Here is one on whom the googlies of existence have no disturbing effect; even to Life's chinamen she would present only the ready straight bat of that inscrutable smile. . . .

Mullarky on the Mona Lisa: The figure is of a slow left-hand bowler who had examined the pitch and is waiting for the' sun to come out. In his eyes one can see next Sunday's averages. . . One notices that he is keeping his hands warm. The picture, which was stolen many years ago from the Headingley pavilion and returned by mistake to the Louvre, was painted by an Italian who had the ice-cream concession for the ground.

R. Kennard Davis did the Grecian Urn, and played tricks on all the Words of Keats's poem which could take it. "Foster" in line two becomes R. E. Foster; "maiden" of course becomes maiden, and Truth leads easily to Trueman.

Granville Garley on Bleak House: Dickens' length is steady, hostile and accurate; the firm-footed Lords of Chancery never get to the pitch of the ball. And when he bats, how murderously he hooks Chadband . . Bleak House has its moments of slow scoring . . • but it is definitely one of the Dickens First Eleven, No. 4 or 5 in the final batting order.

First prize to the Rev. D. M. Greenhalgh (£3). Ll each to P. M. and Douglas Hawson.

PRIZES (Rev. D. M. GREENHALGH) Bleak House Charles Dickens, as umpire, presides over the fortunes of a mixed team of Gentlemen and Players. The Gentlemen are a trifle statuesque, and might well open their shoulders more. But the deadlock between law and disorder on the one hand and common sense on the other is not oppressively felt. The umpire takes licence to dismiss the legal sfonewallers from time to time, and some players of Test Match standard appear. Mrs. Bayham Badger's hat trick is a brilliant performance, while the skiers of Chadband are impressive, but perhaps deserve the "How's that?" which the attitude of Jo and Mr. Snagsby seem to imply. - Mrs. Jellyby's drives into the long field are also very vigorous, and she icores all round the wicket. Guppy's repetitive stroke play palls a little, but he is well up to the standard of other friends of whom he reminds us. Harold Skimpole can hardly be said to play cricket, for, however often he is caught in the slips, he disarms criticism and defies dismissal.

But it must be allowed that this team retains the Ashes, and they those of a Lord Chancellor.

(P. M.)' Mona Lisa

. . . She seems to me to be sitting dreaming in " a land where it is always afternoon"—and a cricketing afternoon at that. Not the baking glaring kind, but one with the brilliance misted over, which means thunder later on. One can almost hear the click of bat on ball and the distant cry of the wicket-keeper. But she is no spectator of that match. In fact she seems to be turning from it as if she smiled to think, "I too have had my innings."

Yes indeed, madam, nor do you mean to retire yet; thirty (if you're a day) and by no means out; and who would risk calling "over"? No doubt you could still place your men if put to the Test. There is a veteran's experience in that meaning smile, and you would have no qualms about body-line bowling either.

... Yet your smile, for all its secret assurance, has a tautness about it—and one would say, for all your savouring of those past victories, they have somehow turned to Ashes in your mouth.

(DOUGLAS HAwsoN) A Country Churchyard

A green wicket with stumps awry. One feels that some great fast bowler, greater and faster than even Lindwall or Larwood, before the time even of Spofforth and gichardson, has had his unanswerable fling on this stricken field. But closer inspection of the pitch reveals a different tale. True, there are a few bowled almost before baptised, caught in the first tremulous opening overs by the fell clutch of circumstance, but far more have battled on to the eighties, and not a few have notched the three figures of a moment's fame. On wickets dry and sticky, against bowling more persistent than deadly, they crept up adding single to single, leaving the sparrows undisturbed by the boundary edge, taking no risks, until the nodding scorer noted with surprise that yet another century had accumulated against the deadliest bowling known to man. Then Out they went, as quietly as they came in, without flourish, without visible struggle, caught by a sudden break, or overthrown by one bumper too many, or just beaten by the sheer fatigue of so long a sojourn at the crease.