Cricket books
Alan Gibson
This Curious Game of Cricket George Mell (Allen & Unwin £5.95)
David Lemmon's pleasantly written book is a useful addition to cricket history. Its weakness is suggested in its title. Freeman and the Decline of the Leg-Break Bowler are two different subjects, related only by the fact that Freeman was a leg- spinner, though not at a time when the art Was declining. We have a sound account of Freeman's cricketing career (he seems to have had little life outside the game, apart from a bossy wife): but the disappearance of leg-spin, a tragedy for cricket, is a much larger subject, which Mr Lemmon only treats peripherally. He does, however, convince me on one point, which is obviously nearer to his heart than anything else: that Freeman was unluckily and probably unjustly treated by the Test selectors. He took 3776 wickets in
first-class cricket, and only Rhodes, in a longer career, has taken more. Yet Freeman only played in 12 Tests, only two against Australia, who were then considered the important opponents. In the 12 he took 66 wickets, average 26, good figures in the high-scoring Twenties.
He had competition, and it was the general English policy to prefer a slow left- hander to a leg spinner, if a choice had to be made between them: but the idea that he was a failure in Test cricket, which I confess I had uncritically accepted, is now firmly discredited. I should have known better. As long ago as 1935 I read Herbert Sutcliffe's For England and Yorkshire (a book which he wrote himself) and he asked 'Has Freeman had a fair chance in Test cricket?', and later says that he 'ought to have been a valuable man for England all the time he has been such a valuable man for Kent'.
But the decline of leg spin cannot be deduced from Freeman's career. When he was not chosen for England, another leg- spinner often played instead — G. T. S. Stevens, I. A. R Peebles, Richard Tyldesley. And there were notable practi- tioners after Freeman's time, though most of them were not English — O'Reilly, Gupte, Ramadhin, McCool, Iverson, Benaud, for instance. We still await an authoritative work on this sad phase of cricket history. Peebles had some such pro- ject in mind when he died. Benaud would do it marvellously, if he could find spare time from his numerous other activities. The Fast Men, by David Frith, is an up- dated version of a book first published in 1975, and a good one too. Since then, fast bowling has become even more the domi- nant force in the game, which may be held to justify the new edition, though the pro- portion of fresh passage is small. All cricketers are worried about the increasing physical danger of the game, and the slow over rate which constant fast bowling re- quires. Mr Frith sets out the evidence fairly. He shrinks from any firm conclusions of his own. During the 'bodyline' series in Australia half a century ago, Pelham Warner, who disapproved of the tactics of Jardine and Larwood, nevertheless remain- ed M.C.C. manager. He bemoaned to Australian friends, 'But what can I do? What can I do?' Clem Hill replied, 'You can come down off the fence for a start, Plum'. Mr Frith is an impartial Anglo- Australian, and as editor of the admirable Wisden Cricket Monthly, naturally does not want to offend any cricketers. But if he sits on the fence much longer the iron will have entered into his soul.
This Curious Game of Cricket is an assemblage of odd snippets of cricketing in- formation (`In a match in 1911 R. D. Bur- rows was cut in the face when a ball from J. H. King hit the stumps and the bails flew forward'). It is just the thing for the lavatory shelf. I do not say this in deprecia- tion. You can pick it up, open it at any point, and read enjoyably for just so long as proves necessary.
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