The Summer Field

80 Journalism might demand a say and political power. The authorities understood that words, any words, led to headlines, controlled by newspapers. Regardless of bodyline, players were under orders to deny journalists any words, the currency of journalism. When rain prevented the Australians’ tour match at Leicester on Saturday, May 1, 1926, the Leicester Sports Mercury reporter ‘Reynard’ found even the English weather proved too controversial. Keep in mind that the reporter on a washed-out day sought any material to take the place of the play. ‘I ventured to suggest [to the Australian captain Herbie Collins, and selectors Warren Bardsley and Jack Ryder] that their point of views on English weather would be interesting,’ Reynard wrote. ‘Mr Collins agreed but declined to commit himself. Their affection for the Old Country is unbounded and some things are best left unsaid.’ In truth those senior cricketers’ suspicion of the press was unbounded. To quote the 1939 Yorkshire county yearbook, an English cricketer invited to play in a Test match could not ‘contribute a report or statement of any kind to the press or give any broadcast talk or statement until the end of the season’. Significantly the selectors told the player’s county, besides the player. Counties might enforce similar rules because they too wanted control. Lord Hawke, re-elected Yorkshire club president for the 35 th year in January 1933, told the annual meeting: ‘Never so long as I have anything to do with Yorkshire cricket shall any amateur or professional write for the press if such writing includes criticism in any shape or form of the Yorkshire eleven, its selectors, its officials or any of its opponents.’ At least his lordship allowed comment on the weather!? While you could call Hawke a bigot, like most bigots he had a point. He quoted ‘my friend Ranji’ who objected to criticism of fellow players during a match. Criticism spoiled dressing room harmony. If Hawke was a tyrant over Yorkshire, that was his club’s choice; and indeed that 1933 meeting applauded him. Where Hawke and his kind were open to criticism was that they were telling others what to do in a free country, and could not tell fair comment from ‘criticism’. For example, because Hobbs put his name to such comments as ‘Oh the boredom’ about his former fellow opener Sutcliffe’s 194 in the first Test the month before, Hawke reckoned Sutcliffe (and Yorkshire!?) deserved an apology. Given that newspapers bothered cricket’s authorities so much, why did they have anything to do with the press? After all, ironically, the Yorkshire Post was allowed to fully report Hawke’s speech. The truth was, cricket was like anything else competing for the public attention. It needed the press as much as the press needed it; the conflict was only over control. * Publicity had its uses. In July 1929 the touring South Africans, short of players because of injuries, wanted to call up J.P.Duminy of Transvaal, who was ‘somewhere in England’: ‘… and should he read this he is requested to report at once’, the Leicester Sports Mercury, for one, printed. Some in cricket were hypocrites, using the press when it suited them. Pelham Warner, the bodyline tour manager who mockingly told the press