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THE M.C.C.'s verdict upon the leg-theory tactics of the English cricketers in Australia has won general agreement in this country, and with reason. Reviewing the matter dispassionately, the M.C.C. were right in concentrating their attention—as they obviously did—on the rules, spirit, and tradition of the game, and asking themselves whether Mr. Jardine's team had conformed to them. Having done that they had no choice but to conclude with an expression of " fullest confidence in captain, team and managers," and to deprecate the expressed opinion of the Australian Board of Control that there had been " unsportsmanlike play." Thus at one and the same time they affirmed the propriety of the so-called " body-line " methods .of bowling, and rebuked the Board for prejudging the issue by the use of so harsh a word as " unsportsmanlike."
That their view of the position is the correct one we in this country cannot doubt. Brilliant and experienced cricketers of the past and present have come forward with one accord and given their testimony. Deliberate bowling at the body with intent to injure would of course be improper ; but if any bowler should resort to such unprofitable tactics the umpire has power to stop him. But there is nothing, we are assured, in the theory or past practice of the game which forbids the delivery of the fastest balls on the leg side, liable as such balls may be to rise and strike an unskilful batsman, especially when he adopts a " two-eyed " stance with his chest exposed broadside to the bowler. Nor has the right of a captain to group his field on the leg side or any other part of the ground ever been questioned. This method was adopted by the Australians themselves in 1921 when Gregory and Macdonald punished the bodies as well as the wickets of our batsmen—the latter making no protest. Lord Tennyson recalls how he was hit in much the same manner as Woodfull. Deeply regrettable as it is that Woodfull and Oldfield should have been injured by the formidable bowling of Larwood, it may be argued that there is no great game or sport—cricket, football, hunting, boxing or baseball—which can wholly be freed from the poSsibility of injury.
• We need not here go into these details. Nor is it possible at this distance to appreciate fully the circum- stances which have led not only the Australian crowd and Press, but the Australian cricketers themselves, to take up an attitude so different from ours. The changes which in recent years have come over the game through the improvement in pitches, the growing supremacy of bat over ball, and the increasing habit of protecting the wicket with the pad may also have produced some changes in the mental attitude of players. Be that as it may, we are confronted with the discon- certing fact that the unanimous body of opinion in Australia goes in one direction, and the unanimous body of opinion in England in the opposite direction. In view of that difference, it is not enough to be convinced -as we are convinced—that our men have right on their side ; we have also to recognize the obvious fact that Australians, in their present mood, quite sincerely feel that they have a just grievance and a reason for protesting, and that this feeling is so general and so strong as to make some people think it may " disturb the friendly relations existing between Australia and England." The repeated barracking of the Australian crowd, the cool relations between some members of the opposing teams, the unprecedented protest of the Board of Control and the M.C.C.'s curt reply to it, the violent partisanship of the Press, and the reverberation of comment throughout the world—all of this is a strange and disturbing result of—what ?—a game of cricket—a contest of athletic prowess between two friendly groups of sportsmen. How could such an event lead to such a clash of feverish controversy and bitter feeling, we ask, re-reading words sent out on a Christmas card by the President of the American Olympic Association, expressing his " hope and belief that through international sports, competitions, play and recreation, the peoples of the world have been brought closely together in the bonds of friendship, understanding and co-operation " ? That is the idea Which we have always entertained when we have spoken of the influence of games and the camaraderie of good sportsmanship. That is the effect which observers have noted in India, where the intimate give and take of the football field has done something to break down the hitherto rigid exclusiveness of caste.
The dispute with Australia is due to the fact that people on both sides have been forgetting that a cricket Test Match is, after all, only a game. The Press, in this country as well as in Australia, cannot be held guiltless of helping to create a false scale of values. A German recently visiting London, observing on a poster the words " M.C.C. Collapse. Disaster to England," tore open his paper to discover what new national calamity was imperil- ling this country. It turned out to be a failure of cricketers to score runs. A wrong state of mind has been created about these Tests. They are games—competi- tions between sportsmen—trials in which, above all things, we ought to wish that the better side, ours or the other, will win. Magnanimity is of the very essence of sport. Neither England nor Australia will suffer any harm by losing the rubber comparable with what they will suffer by losing their tempers.
The interchange of cables has made it in some ways more difficult, in others easier, for Mr. Jardine to take a course that still deserves consideration. To have capitulated to Australian opinion and abandoned the leg-trap method would ten days ago have been tantamount to an admission that the Australian protest was justified. It would to some extent be open to that construction still. But the M.C.C.'s immediate and unqualified vindication of the English captain has gone far to remove that objec- tion. Such a comment, moreover, as that of the Melbourne Herald, to the effect that if England goes on with the leg- trap bowling the Australians must just stand up to it and play it, makes it much easier for Mr. Jardine to say, if be should finally so decide, that perfectly legitimate though the leg-trap method is England will abandon it, to her own disadvantage, for the last two Tests. Such a decision may seem quixotic. But the psychological value of meeting a charge of unsportsmanlike play, however fantastic,
by an action whose sportsmanship no Australian would fail to recognize might be great. There has been talk of cancelling the rest of the tour, but there is already ground for believing that the need for that regrettable expedient will not arise. Cancellation would no doubt be better than further bickering, but there is still time, given the exercise
of a tact and discretion in which our own players have in no way fallen sholt, to derive a new cordiality out of an unhappy clash, and make Test Match cricket what it should be, a bond of union, not a rock of offence, between two sensible and friendly partners in the Commonwealth.
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