CRICKET-MORE OR LESS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Your contributor, Mr. Laurence Housman, the inventor of Bridge, has tried to anticipate criticism of his comments on the game of cricket by the familiar device of saying that he has invented a new game and that he is not criticising cricket as we understand it even if the inventor of " Snippets " does not. " Snippets " is certainly not cricket but, in outlining this new kind of rounders, Mr. Housman justifies his " improvements " by some very fundamental misconceptions. He thinks cricket is merely a game in which one side should win by hitting more runs than the other side. Thus he deplores drawn matches, playing for time, putting the other side in on a wet wicket— this he calls " unsporting "—and all the other subtleties of modem cricket. What he does not understand is that cricket is a game offering, at its present stage of development, infinitely more variety of scope for achievement and good judgement than is apparently thought of in his philosophy. It is not only technical skill in batting and bowling that is demanded. Being an open-air game, cricket requires of a captain the ability even to prophesy the English weather ! Tactics are sometimes as important (and as interesting to the intelligent spectator) as are the fastest batting or the most deadly bowling ; what a delicate matter it is to choose the right moment to declare ! Mr. Housman will have none of this. He wants a man to throw a ball at other men for three hours, leaving the rest to a time-table devised quite arbitrarily by Mr. Housman. We should feel quite happy in the face of this sort of competition if only it were true that Mr. Housman had invented a new game without seeking to alter cricket, an implication he disarmingly disowns. But, like all inventors, he really feels " Snippets " to be a better thing than cricket, and he admits with conscious pride that it would make it a " brighter and quicker game." As if any cricketer wanted cricket to be " brighter and quicker," if " Snippets " is " bright and quick " ! But Mr. Housman is not a cricketer ; he is a Saturday afternoon spectator. I will gladly leave him his " Snippets " if he will leave me my cricket.
Over-Seas House, St. James's, London, S.W.r.
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