3 JANUARY 1964, Page 12

Sir Jack . . . Sir Frank Sir John Berry

Hobbs is dead. The 197 cen- turies, the 61,237 runs, stand in the record book. The Hobbs Gates guard the Oval. As long as men talk about cricket they will talk about the master. Yet. Jack Hobbs has an even surer claim to immortality : as long as schoolboys of all ages scribble down their World All-Time Cricket Eleven to play Mars his name is sure to be there, in the team that starts (anyway mine does) Grace, Hobbs, Trumper, Bradman, Headley....

And Frank Worrell is to be knighted. Hooray! A very great player and perhaps the best cap- tain Test cricket has seen. He has, I think, given more to cricket than any man—since Jack Hobbs. Even with Sobers, Kanhai, Hunte, Hall, Griffith in his team Worrell did more than anyone both to win the series and to make the tour last summer a blazing success.

And warm congratulations also to Mrs. Wor-

rell, most charming, most partisan of cricket wives. I can still hear her shrill of delight, even above the bedlam, when Hall bowled Lock first ball in England's second innings in the final Test at the Oval. Haste ye back!