13 JUNE 1992, Page 24

Cricketing critic Sir: For many years I believed that Giles

Auty was appointed art critic of your jour- nal because he was good enough at tennis to make a pair with Taki and a sufficiently expert batsman to open for your cricket team. It was unworthy of me. His hostile review (Arts, 30 May) of my review of the Magritte exhibition at the Hayward Gallery is powerful enough to persuade me for the first time since I began to write about art for the Sunday Times six months ago that I have been right about something.

Frank Whitford

The Savile Club, 69 Brook Street, London W1