CRICKET ONCE MORE
By OLIVER WARNER THE unlikely has happened once again. The hedonists who refused to believe, in 1939, that they had seen the last of county cricket are proved right. The fun of another season is opening up. The seven intervening years were not wholly lost. Good games were seen, particularly at Lord's. Old favourites sparkled, freed for a day or two from blue or khaki. Sharp eyes detected what they thought was good stuff in the making. All the same, there has been a great gap. " To look back on the English cricket season of 1939," as Mr. Robertson-Glasgow well said, " is like peeping curiously through the wrong end of a telescope at a very small but very happy world "- happy, that is, within a dark framework. " We have," he added, " jumped a dimension or two since then in both time and space." The outlook is now fair. Most clubs (though without exception they are in need of money, particularly for long-term projects) report enthusiasm among both playing and non-playing members, with the hope of having found promising material with which to build new teams. The right blending of youth with experience will now be the test of good captains and committees. How hard it will be to discard proven talent, and—if now too ripe—how necessary! One recalls the changes the last war brought even upon the greatest. Hobbs, master that he long remained, was a more brilliant man in 1914 than he ever was in the post-war years, though great enough still to give his name to an era of the game.
There is to be a revision, and some changes. The revision, which will be welcomed, is a return to the six ball over. The eight ball over had a fair trial in this country, but has not seemed quite to have justified itself. Nor has it helped in the incessant quest for a cluster of good fast bowlers. There is to be the experiment of allowing a new ball to be called for every fifty-five overs. More important still, a team is to be allowed to declare an innings closed on the first day, after scoring 30o runs. That may well help in the direction of brightening the game. Last, there is an alteration in the county championship system. All the counties are to play each other at least once. They will play twenty-six championship matches. Twelve points will be counted for a win, six for a tie, and four for a lead in the first innings in a match drawn or lost.
Harking back to 1939, one finds it instructive to recall how the counties then fared. Yorkshire, as so often, was first ; Middlesex second, as it had been the year before. Then came Gloucestershire. Essex—for that county a high place—Kent, Lancashire, Worcester- shire, Surrey, Derbyshire, Sussex—unwontedly low—Warwickshire, Notts, Glamorgan, Somerset, Hampshire, Northants, Leicestershire. As for the players they were, in order, much as one recollects, Hammond, closely followed by Hutton, averaging over sixty ; a short gap, then Compton ; then Hardstaff and the veteran Sutcliffe ; then Keeton, Iddon (lost to us so close upon the new season) ; then Edrich, James Langridge, first of the left-handers, and Ames, fielding that year, but usually the foremost wicket-keeper batsman. In bowling, Hedley Verity was facile princeps. Verity's loss in action is com- parable with the loss in the last war of Colin Blythe. He and Fames are irreplaceable. Of those who took forty or more wickets came another Yorkshireman, Bowes ; then Goddard, Copson, Wright, Lewis, Matthews, Hutton and Nichols. Hutton is not often claimed as an all-rounder, but figures speak for themselves.
Long-term prospects have continually pivoted on the same two questions—is it possible to find vintage bowling in tolerable quan- tity, and can a balanced team be built up to face Australia with assurance? Both are possible of solution. The trend away from the too careful preparation of pitches should help bowlers, while, as for the balanced team, it is certain at least that we shall be able to play Australia with more confidence than ever we did in the early twenties, when, by a miracle which may or may not have prophetic significance, county cricket was at its best and our Test Match per- formance at its worst. There should be batsmen in plenty. Imme- diately before Hitler stopped play, the choice was almost embarrass. ing. Moreover, we have probably learnt lessons. We shall, for instance, lean more on the young than the old. As for the imme- diate past history of Tests, if we except the dreadful unfinished marathon played at Durban in 1939, it is far from depressing. Although we have not won a rubber outright against Australia since D. R. Jardine's perhaps too combatant series, G. 0. Allen's tour in 1936-37 was a near thing, and the very last Aus-tralian Test played in this country, while it resulted in a series being drawn, showed a grand upsurge of batsmen and included Hutton's mammoth 364.
It is a safe bet that the crowds will this year flock to the big grounds. There are visitors to welcome. Good and enterprising cricket is sure to be seen, and may be universal. Much nonsense is annually talked about pepping-up the game, though this year (with smaller papers) there is less than usual. Cricket in itself needs no brightening. The rules are all right ; it is the spirit of sides and captains which matters. In this respect it is salutary to recall some words of Brian Sellars: " We are out to win ; if we cannot do so, good luck to our opponents, but we are not going to give them a chanCe if we can help it." That may serve to show the way in
which the higher level of cricket should be approached. Although it is Yorkshire's, way, it is no reflection upon a great county to say that many followers of the game—not all from the South—hope
that Yorkshire may be given a closer run for the Championship than has sometimes'happened and that, indeed, it may go elsewhere at the start. Nothing encourages county cricket so much as a stiff
and protracted tussle. Nothing helps a moderate county more, financially and otherwise, than to be "in the running" by the be- ginning of August. It may sometimes seem that Yorkshire looms too large ; Leicester and Northants too small. The " glorious un- certainty " provides for every change and chance. In one particular respect a permanent alteration has come over the game. The heyday of the amateur is over. He declined
steadily in numbers between the wars, through economic pressure, and it is difficult to,foresee more than a handful continuing in first- class cricket, once they have gone down from the university, except perhaps during an odd spell of leave, or in school holidays if they teach the young. This is a loss, and it means that the professional must provide both the solidity and the fizzle. There is, however,
more than a probability that he will. Because a man plays a game for his living there, is no reason why he should not do so, as the greatest have always done, with enjoyment. Figures can be exciting things ; the giants do not allow them to become tyrants. Those who bat with an eye and a bit on their averages may
paper ; but they do not foster enthusiasm, and it is that which makes
the world of cricket zestful. impress on
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