Sporting Aspects
Glorious Uncertainty By J. P. W. MALLALIEU THE exasperating, tremendous Second Test at Lord's has swung this way and that into history. Except for the first day, I could only grab bits and pieces of this match —the Stop Press at Waterloo, the Close of Play from a porter at Weymouth, one glorious hour by the wireless at an inn near Wareham where everyone said " hush " even if you merely asked for a glass of bitter, scraps gleaned from the House of Commons tape and finally, for Tuesday's last leaden-footed hour, the sweltering agony of the members' television room. • Most of us can attend to our cricket only in such uncertain ways. Taken in these ways cricket comes at you like a shower of meteorites instead of flowing through you like a majestic stream. You cannot attend both cricket and the outside world. A cricket match is, and should be treated as, a world of its own. Even if you are actually there for the whole of one day you may not get even a glimpse of the whole which the match will eventually become. You can eat one slice and know what the cake is like. You can see one act of a play and make a fair guess at the rest. But no one can tell what a cricket match is like until he has seen all of it to the very last ball. However, there was I on Thursday in a packed Lord's, to see the first act, to take my unrepresentative slice. If one thing is certain about the opening hours of a Test Match, it is that the batting side will try to dig itself in. This is all right when the batting side is your own but tiresome when it is not. Only the memory of England getting out before lunch at the Oval in 1948 and the hope that Australia might now do the same thing at Lord's reconciled me to the news that Hassett had won the toss. However, Hassett and Morris did not get out. Instead they scored quite fast. It must have been pretty to watch. Unfortunately another certain thing about the opening of a Test did run true to form. The crowd took a long time to settle down. One's spirit normally moves as slowly into the match as the opening pair. One needs to sniff the air to get the feel of the day and to identify the players.. So in the first hour the crowd is good-humouredly detached, ready to test its lungs with appeals for a catch when the ball goes through to the wicket-keeper, ready to laugh when someone below the members' stand drops a case of beer, ready to turn dispas- sionate eyes on the Lord's pigeons as they feed near the boundary. But if the spirit needs time to settle into a Test, there is no reason why the body should. Of course there will be latecomers, who stride eagerly down the gangway and are caught and held by their first sight of the play. But a sharp word from the obstructed spectators behind will soon settle them. But on Thursday the Lord's crowd never settled all day. Some thousands were sitting on the grass round the ring under the full glare of a June sun that was hot. But hot or not, their Lordships assume that people come to the ground to see cricket. This proved as wrong as Mr. Rank's belief that people come to cinemas to see films. They come both to Lord's and to the Odeon to eat ice-cream. So through- out the day there was an unending shimmer of movement. At three o'clock, late enough for everyone to have had his lunch and too early for anyone to want his tea, I analysed four overs. In those four overs I had an unobstructed sight of only six balls. During the remainder someone was going out or coming back. My neighbour said: " They should broad- cast a running commentary of the play. Then we'd know what was happening." I said : " No. That would interfere with cricket's glorious uncertainty. All they need to do is to make a rule that spectators cannot claim a new ice-cream until they've had sixty-five overs with the old."
In the late afternoon wickets began to falls, the consumption of Ice-cream diminished, and I was able to see. Hassett had been safe, steady and dull. Just after his century he retired with cramp, caught, no doubt, from the spectators. Morris had been pretty but he had gone long ago. Harvey, usually so graceful, had been heavy-footed. The ice-cream consumers ploughed back and forth, but the rest of us dozed under half- closed lids. Then came Miller and Davidson. At the sight of Miller the ground awoke. Even when he is standing, tall and majestic, at the bowling end you feel you want to watch him. For the moment he is statuesque, one hand on hip, the other leaning on his bat. But in the next second he will be dashing down 'the pitch for a cheeky single, helping to swathe the already sweating umpire in more sweaters or throwing a sweet to Denis Compton. This afternoon when he was at the batting end he was in a swishing mood. He swished and missed and laughed and swished again. Then he faced Wardle's slow left arm. He swished. The ball soared as high as Father Time for the first six of the match and Miller followed its flight with shaded eyes. Long after the ball had been returned Miller stood agaze, either seeing if there were any dead among the packed spectators or, more likely, calculating how much extra effort would be required to send the next ball altogether clear of the stand. The next ball came and Miller did clear the stand. Unfortunately he omitted the formality of hitting the ball and was bowled. The crowd stood up and shouted, both for the wicket and for the joyousness of Miller. The moment Davidson came in, Hutton spread out his field. Here obviously was a hitter. The crowd sat do'Wn, then sat up. Through expectant silence Brown trundled up to bowl Davidson his first, ball and fielders in the outfield moved in, tiptoe, with cupped hands. Davidson prodded the ball gently down the pitch and the crowd laughed. The next ball was the same—a gentle prod followed by relaxing all round. The next shot through the covers for four. From his next hit, a stinging, rising hit, Davidson was all but caught and bowled.
So the day drew to its close until finally Wardle began the last over, Wardle who shortly before had taken a wicket in each of three successive overs. As he coiled his left arm behind his back and swung, I felt in my bones that the day would end in earthshaking climax. But nothing happened and we went home.
These then are my true memories of what must be one of the most remarkable Test Matches ever played, with England standing at 177 for one against Australia's first innings total of 346 and then struggling into the lead only after a last wicket stand; with England, in face of Australia's second innings of 368, losing three wickets for 20 before the last day's play and then throughout the whole of that last day losing only four wickets more. I saw none of this. But amid all cricket's uncertainty one thing is sure: that when my grand- children ask about that patient, flawless stand by Watson and Bailey, about the agonising last thirty minutes when both these were out and the crowd cheered every ball that was missed or blocked while the seconds oozed out of the clock, I shall say and know that I was there.
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