Sporting. Aspects
Ifs and Ans
By BERNARD DARWIN , F VERYONE has heard of the ancient speculation about Cleopatra's nose. If it had been shorter or longer by just some minute fraction of an inch her beauty would have been by that much less overpowering and the whole course of the world's history might have been changed accordingly. There are doubtless many other historical " ifs," but I am only concerned here with game-playing ones. A favourite one of mine is what would have happened if W.G. had gone up to Cambridge. In the Memorial Biography, the late Mr. C. E. Green, who was in the Cambridge eleven from 1865 to 1868, wrote that in his time there was an exciting rumour that W.G. was coming up to Caius, the natural college for one destined to medicine. Moreover years afterwards the doctor had said to him, " Yes, I really came very near doing so." Supposing he had, let us say in 1868 when he was twenty, the course of the University match would scarcely have been altered. With the best will in the world to diminish Oxford's record, I have to admit that Cambridge won, without W.G., in 1868, 1869 and 1870. But in one respect the history of cricket would have been, singularly enough, not the richer but the poorer, since there could have been no Cobden's match. In 1870 Cobden gained his niche, as every schoolboy knows, by taking the last three Oxford wickets in an immortal hat-trick, so that Cambridge won by two runs. If W.G. had been playing, Oxford would, humanly speaking, have been annihilated. We should have long since forgotten the name of Cobden, and Mr. Robert Lyttelton could never have written that paean of Cambridge triumph ending with the words, " Smash went Mr. Charles Marsham's umbrella against the pavilion brickwork."
Another speculation of mine, a golfing one this time, is how history might have been changed if my old friend J. H. Taylor, now living in retirement near his beloved links of West- ward Ho !; had succeeded when young in going into the Army or the Navy. He tried hard and often, but the Services, ironically enough, thought his eyesight was not good enough and the Royal Artillery seem to have added insult to injury by saying that he had flat feet. Suppose they had accepted him, he is a man of such character and ability that he must surely have risen to, high rank in his service. He would still have been a great golfer, for nothing could have prevented that, but there might have been no Triumvirate and his ultimate apotheosis might have been as winner of the General's Cup at the Army Golfing Society's Meeting. I declare I feel quite sorry for the hypothetical Admiral who would have had to meet him in the Admirals v. Generals match. On the whole I 'think that in this case history is better as it is with J.H. and his five Open Championships.
When we talk about games and often, I am afraid, when we wtite about them, we are too prone to declare that something would inevitably have happened if something else had not in fact happened instead. I daresay I am throwing stones in a glass house, but here is one example that yearly infuriates me. I read that the match between the Wanderers and the Rovers was drawn 1-1, but that the Wanderers would have won 2-1 if the wretched Snooks had not missed an open goal, when his side Was already leading 1-0. The writer has assumed as a mathematical certainty what can only be a speculation. If Snooks had not so disgraced himself his side would haye scored two goals; so much, is admitted but beyond that all is uncertainty. The whole remaining course of the game must have been different. What in fact happened was that owing to Snooks' strange dereliction the Rovers' goal- keeper had a kick from his own goal-line. If Snooks had done his duty and scored a goal, there would have ensued a kick-off from the middle of the ground. What would then have happened ? Nobody can possibly tell. I am labouring the obvious, but it is an obvious point that those who describe matches do not seem to grasp.
There is another point about the making of these assump- tions. We are all apt to forget that every single stroke in a game affects the frame of mind of the player, which in its turn affects his next stroke and so the whole course of the game. Without going into the questions of free will and predestination, which are, to tell the truth, something beyond me, this much is surely certain, and yet we seldom recognise it. I will give a golfing instance, which again, I am .afraid, rouses in me a state of intense irritation. It will be remembered that in 1949 at Sandwich that fine and cheerful Irish golfer Harry Bradshaw tied for the Open Championship with Locke and lost on playing off the tie. Playing the fifth hole in one of his four rounds he found his ball after his second shot stuck in the neck of a broken bottle. Not being very certain as to the law he wisely played the ball where it lay, the ball emerged from the bottle and he ultimately holed out in six. It is probable that he lost one stroke through this mishap, but it is impossible to say more: he might have played a bad approach shot and taken six anyhow; he might have played a good one and holed his putt in four. The incident may well have upset him, so that he played the next few holes less well than he would otherwise have done; it may have stimulated him to play them better. Nobody can possibly tell and yet I have read number- less times, as if it were a positive and mathematical certainty, that Bradshaw lost the Championship through the one stroke cost him by that intrusive bottle.
There is another instance, over which I have often come near to shedding salt tears. that of Roger Wethered in the Open Championship at St. Andrews in 1921. After going forward to study the line at one hole he kicked his ball by mistake in walking back to it and must pay the penalty of a stroke. In the end he, like Biadshaw, tied for the Champion- ship (with Jock Hutchison) and lost on playing off. It has been said over and over again ever since, that he lost that Championship by that single penalty stroke. Very likely I said so myself in my grief that he had not won, but it is in fact an unwarranted assumption. If he had not kicked his ball by mistake he might have won by the length of the street or he might not have tied. I know no more courageous or philosophical golfer but I cannot assume that the penalty stroke had no effect on his frame of mind one way or the other.
I fear that such arguments as I. am putting forward will not console some unfortunate fielder who has missed a " sitting " catch, whereupon the batsman has gone on to make another hundred runs or so. You never can tell, but it is hardly possible to deny that he has wrought his side much harm. One of Arthur Croome's pleasant stories of the days when he played for Gloucestershire under W.G. related to a really tragic miss. He had missed a Middlesex batsman, I think Stanley Scott, who had proceeded to make a century. However W.G. himself had saved the situation by a great innings and Gloucestershire had won after all. After this happy ending Croome had thought it safe to congratulate his Captain and to apologise for his own expensive error; but he was not entirely let off. "Yes," answered the Doctor, " but what I say is we never hadn't ought to have been put to it."
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