Cricket 1905

F eb 23, 1905. CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 29 THE EVOLU T ION OF CR ICKET . THE GROWTH OF THE NATIONAL GAME SCIENTIFICALLY EXPLAINED. It is an acknowledged fact in educated circles that the great law of evolution is now reco.nised—consciously or uncon­ sciously—as a sine qua non of twentieth century opinion, and, with this proposi­ tion in mind, an interesting corollary is arrived a t ; that not only does this law apply to such vast phenomena as suns, to such complex existences as societies, to organisms and to individual character, but even to suoh a diversified and “ un­ scientific” subject as the national pas­ times of a nation. In a sentence : the law of evolution holds good with our game of Cricket. The idea may be crude, bizarre, and even nonsensical; but I claim this for it, whioh surely justifies our investigations, that it exhi­ bits the game, not as a mere faked-up plaything—a spilikins or bumble-puppy —or as an idle amusement, a mere baga­ telle, pour passer le temps, but actually as a useful and growing member of society’s vast organism, which performs its pirt in the routine of universal progress, and continues homologous with that society, of which it is a part, to evolve in har­ mony with the best traditions of the race. And what is this if not a state of evolution thoroughly in accordance with the doctrines of our greatest thinkers, which should be of interest to us, in showing that our national game, sung of by poets and immortalised by men of letters, is of such antiquity that its be­ ginnings are hid in the wealth of cen­ turies and its developments cm be followed according to all the laws of evolution. In the year 1180 —although previously it is recorded that some monks in Italy played a game possessing the primary characteristics of cricket—we are first in­ troduced to a description of the game in England (then called “ cricks” ), from which the following interesting points may be taken:— That two Knights played ; That there were two sticks for wickets, with a third on top ; That a third player, referred to as a “ serf ” (mark the distinction, as illustrating, no doubt, the initi­ ation of the system of “ fagging at the nets ” ), stood behind the sticks to stop the ball when it passed the hitter. This infallibly proves to us, with regard to the wickets alone, that the game about this time was in a considerably advanced condition; but the records leave us here, and, just as the palaeontologist beyond the Tertiary period must base his previous conceptions of the beginning and ascent of man upon some natural deduction and upon his imagination, so must we rationally and in a like manner regard the beginning and ascent of cricket. W. W. Bead puts the theory cleverly before us. He says :— “ We can imagine that with the young Briton, whilst tending the cattle, stone- throwing would come in for a good deal of attention, and, to perfect himself in aiming straight, he would throw at a tree or some object set up for the pur­ pose, and when such recreation took place amongst comrades, it would assume by emulation and rivalry the principles and character of a developing sport or game. “ From this beginning someone more enterprising than his fellows would undertake to defend the object attacked by means of a stick extemporised out of a branch torn off a tree ; and throwing a hard stone would be modified into pitch­ ing or bowling ; and it may be that, as a regulation of the contest, the striker, when fortunate enough to ‘ get away ’ the stone, would have to run a certain distance, and some record would be kept of the victor’s doings. . . . Some­ thing introduced to take the place of a stone as a hall would in all probability be made of wood, and this simple im­ provement would lead to the subsequent invention of something more complex as the Briton advanced in all the arts of increasing civilisation.” How infinitely long then must it have taken to have originated the id e i—even holding good so far back as the twelfth century—of having two stumps, and the bail across them, from the primitive tree- trunk ? Surely this is the most conclu­ sive proof we have of the antiquity of the game, reaching, who can tell, into the very era of primitive man himself; and this same primitive man, mark you, and his games are necessarily illustrated by the boy of to-day—himself, as is recog­ nised, passing through the many stages of man’s existence—who for his amuse­ ment throws continually at an object, and may likewise but a step further be shown to be warding off with some rough instrument the attacks of an assailant. Revenona then, what is the correct definition of evolution ? Not simply a growth larger and more “ polished,” but an increase in definiteness and coherence ; or, as Heibert Spencer, the great herald of advancing thought, has written, whilst showing that the “ law of organic pro­ gress is the law of all progress ” : the line of growth is “ at ouce towards complete separateness and complete unity ” ; in other words, starting from a simple beginning, an increasing definite­ ness in structure, and dependence of parts upon each other. For instance: instead of, as originally the case, a chaotic number of boys taking part in a game with little or no arrangement, we possess now a definite “ Eleven” in up-to-date and first-rate matches, each of whom, as in the case of test matches, may perhaps be known as a specialist in his particular position in the field, and out of whom six, say, are played solely for their powers as batsmen, three because they are bowlers, another because he is an “ all­ round man ” and good for anything (whence we see again that exception which proves the rule!) ai d the last because he is clever behind the wickets. What is this if not a growth from what is termed homogeneity to heterogeneity, or the multiplication of parts ? And just as the men, who in the early history of civilised development were each a hunter or each a fighter, have now become so multiplied and diversified that one is a butcher, another a baker, and another a candlestick-maker—every man his own trade and different occupation—and just as in all progress we see the aboriginal, who is every man a hunter or every man a fighter, cheek by jow l with the civilised being; just as also the amoeba, which was the very beginning of life, still exists in company with the supreme type of mammal; so does the most embryonic state of cricket continue to exist in the presence of the supreme game: viz., when in some secluded spot behind the county pavilion we may witness, like a drawing of Phil May’s, “ cricket as she is played” by half-a-dozen most primitive and scrubby little b o y s! In every branch of the game the same holds good. The bat and ball which in their early days were but pieces of rough wood, and could be procured for the asking, have now been developed to such a perfection that special manufactories exist, whose industry and commerce solely rely in some instances upon these particular articles. And likewise the rules of the game, originally unwritten, brought down from father to son, and later established in a code consisting officially of about one hundred and twenty lines, have now reached the vast proportion of nearly three times this figure; and where, as we imagine, in the primitive game man could be “ had ou t” by bowling alone, he can now be dismissed by nine different and diver­ gent methods. Turning once more to the game in it8 entirety, we may rec ignise that further truth which allows that only those societies or organisms which are of help and benefit to the community continue to exist and evolve; and it is in thii way, I think, that we can understand why cricket has outlived so many generations and must contiuue to exist and evolve amongst us, for not only is it healthy and stimulating, both for the players and the lookers-on, bat also provides much useful labour for a large number of employes, and is in countless ways a recreation of pure amusement and healthy enjoyment to many who might other­ wise spend their spare moments in a senseless and unprofitable laissez faire. We now arrive at a most essential feature of our reasoning. While in the earliest times we may suppose the game to have been played “ all against all,” it can be argued also that further advance­ ment consisted in selected sides, and then later organised teams regularly main­ tained by patrons of the sport, which last continued on, till latterly, about the days of our grandfathers, were played what might be termed “ first-class ” matches—when Kent met All England, and the old Hambledon Club was the very de luxe of combinations. And so the antagonists have grown more and more organised and numerous, until now