Cricket, lovely cricket
Sir: I am obliged to Mr Nevin (Letters, 30 May) for indicating the difference between good and bad theology, and for pointing out that people are either Christians or they are not. He underlines the point that I was seek- ing to make in my letter which you pub- lished on 23 May.
If a person is a Christian then surely his conduct should be Christian in every situa- tion. He cannot choose a Christian code of conduct in one context and ignore it in another. What has appalled me in the atti- tudes of the Bishops of Woolwich and Step- ney (and other professing Christians who think like them) is the intolerant and holier- than-thou approach to a team of young men who were coming to this country purely to play cricket and who would have given a great deal of pleasure to a great many people in doing so. I am fully in sympathy with Dr Bowers (Letters, 30 May) when he condemns such hypocrisy. Little wonder the churches are losing their congregations.
Mr Nevin mentions the opposition of Jesus to the Jewish authorities, but here again he fails to show that he condemned or upbraided individuals for the sins of those authorities.
One further point mentioned by Mr Nevin should be challenged. He infers that the Cricket Council's action was illogical in banning further South African tours of this country until multi-racial cricket is played in South Africa. To anyone with the slightest knowledge of cricket surely this was the completely logical course to take. The strength of the present South African Test team is such that no non-white player (possibly not even Basil d'Oliveira himself, with all respect to him) could have been included on merit. In the ordinary course of events the next South African tour of Eng- land would have taken place five years hence when there could well have been non-white candidates. Failure to recognise this reveals the politician, not the cricketer.
G. A. Hodcroft 30 Sandy Lane, Stretford, Manchester
Sir: I have noted with genuine sorrow, tinged with a fair amount of anger, the withdrawal of the invitation of the Cricket Council to the South Afritan cricketers. I regard this as an unwarranted interference with the freedom of peace-loving citizens to watch some of the finest cricketers in the world; an admission that the present forces of law and order of this once great nation are strangely inadequate; and a triumph (yet another in a dismal succession) for the voices of anarchy and communist-inspired agitation.
These events have entouraged me to em- bark on a personal boycott of certain Com- monwealth countries and their goads. Many of us will avoid all contact with the so-called Commonwealth Games, now to be attended by 'sportsmen' from vitriolic and vitupera- tive nations whose dictatorial, not to say unconstitutional, policies are above discus- sion and, apparently, above reproach.
Desmond I. Shaw
12 Osborne Drive, Belfast Sir: It may, or may not be, a good thing that the present Home Secretary has pressurised the MCC into cancelling their invitation to the Springboks to play a few games of cricket here this summer, but as a Northern observer of the Metropolitan scene I am impelled to ask him, through the channels of your excellent correspondence column, two questions.
Did he at any time consider inviting that scion of my own college, Mr Peter Hain, to call off his minions?
And does he think that by 'Stopping the 70 Tour' he will prevent anarchical disturb- ances taking place this year? I doubt it. Thanks to my wife, who was in town at the time, I was dragged into the most recent demo in Grosvenor Square, and I do not believe that the cancelling of the tour will make any difference to the protest scene in the long hot summer ahead.
John A. Smith Naval and Military Club, 94 Piccadilly, Lon- don wl
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