CRICKET MORE OR LESS
By LAURENCE HOUSMAN
YEARS and years ago, when I was still young, I invented " Bridge," long before the Clubs had heard of it ; but doubting whether anyone would regard it as an improve- ment upon Whist (as, indeed, in my opinion, it is not), I did not make my invention public. And so, in the next half- generation or so, somebody else got the credit of it. And as I am so old-fashioned as to regard Bridge as Whist spoiled, I ought not to repine that another took over the responsi- bility of fathering it upon a world which could have done quite well without it—and without Auction Bridge much better.
But now, in the last five minutes, I have invented an improvement upon cricket, which I am so convinced is an improvement that I am not going to keep it to myself That it will not be adopted, I am pretty sure ; it would practically abolish drawn matches, it would reduce the " glorious uncertainty" on which cricket prides itself; it would make the game much fairer to both sides ; it would be " more cricket," in fact, since it would force the batsmen to bat more sportingly and courageously, and without that slow crawl against time which secures a draw by the making of no runs at all. It would, that is to say, make cricket a much brighter and quicker game than that to which Test matches and County Championships and amateur professionalism have reduced it.
My proposal is this : you have a two or a three-day match, which, weather permitting, allows for some twelve or eighteen hours' play before stumps are finally drawn. Those hours are divided up into equal portions, to be alternately allotted to the competing teams—three hours each, and the match is decided on the total of runs made by each team in that equally allotted time. A wins the toss, and makes the most it can of its first three hours ; or, if it likes, sends in B to do the same. The batting team may, in that time, lose none of its wickets, or it may lose all ; but whatever number of wickets it may have lost, it resumes after the other side has had its three hours' innings, precisely where it left off. Thus in bouts of three hours a side, giving both the field and the batsmen a reasonable rest in turn, the match moves on its way. The players come more freshly to their task, the vagaries of the weather, being- more equally divided, can be less artfully calculated on by Captains who unsportingly try to get the Clerk of the Weather to play for them ; the interest is more sustained, since till close upon the end the result is more doubtful. The innings are played out in sections ; not until the third day, unless one side is obviously the weaker, can the result begin to be predicted. Take, for instance, a match divided into six periods of three hours each, which work out as follows : First period. Team A : 159 for six wickets. Second period. Team B : 184 for three wickets.
Third period. Team A : 64 (end of 1st innings) ; (2nd innings) 28 for one wicket.
Fourth period. Team B : 75 (end of 1st innings) ; (2nd innings) to for no wickets.
Fifth period. Team A : r90 (end of 2nd innings). Sixth period. Team B : 13o for eight wickets.
Yes : according to the old rules that match would be a draw. Under my rules it would be a witifor A. Each team has been given as equal a chance as possible to make the most of its time. A has played the quicker game, i.e., 42 runs ahead as the result, and deserved to win, even though team B has two wickets in hand, when time is up.
There could, of course, be hard cases ; there always are ; but not such hard cases or so many or such large unfairnesses as now result, in our changeable climate, from all the worst of the weather and the worn wicket falling to the lot of one team ; and all the luck to the other ; and though, when the luck happened to be against it, in respect of weather, it might sometimes be hard lines on the slower team, which had made fewer runs with an uncompleted second innings, I still hold that the game would be so much improved in brightness and speed by the elimination of the drawn match, that the change would be worth trying.
But there is still the weather problem, in certain cases, to be dealt with. How are the three-hour periods affected when for two or three or more hours play becomes impossible ? The three-hour periods would then be too long for the equal spacing of time which they are intended to ensure. In such cases, I would have the subsequent periods proportionately shortened ; and only if the weather towards the close of play deprived one side of its equal portion of time would I let a match be drawn ; and even then it should be drawn in favour of that team which,while conditions were equal, had made the most of its time.
I have no doubt that if my revolutionary proposition attracts any notice at all, it will be mainly of an adverse character. I shall be told that, whatever may be said for it (and that only by lunatics), it would no longer be cricket.
Very well ; in that case I have invented a new game, as I invented Bridge years ago, without thinking that it was in the least likely to be popular, and so did not even trouble to make it public, or even to give it a name. But this new game that I have invented, or evolved, I do now make public, and if it is " not cricket," let it be called " Snippets."
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