Cricket 1905

454 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. Nov. 30, 1905 of the weakest combinations that repre­ sented Australia in England. And the pity of it is that there are thousands in the colonies who have justly said, and will continue to say with that peculiar pertinacity of the prophet: “ I told you s o .” Before the team left Australia certain members of the party stated thatthey con­ sidered it to be the best possible selection that could be made. It was like patting one’s own back. But the public was not deceived. It is inconceivable that any­ one who follows the game closely could have thought so. One can quite under­ stand how a selection committee, whose members have to give and tako in their arguments, would pick a team satisfac­ tory to themselves as a committee yet not altogether what each one individually would prefer. Anyone who has had .experience on a selection committee, club or otherwise, will understand this. The Australian selectors of late years have shut their eyes to some useful lessons of the past. Biilliant as they have become in many directions, Austra­ lians have learned to regard with disdain some of the points or ideas about the game which were most highly thought of in the days when W. L. Murdoch, F. R. Spoffortb, T. Horan, P. S. McDonnell, G. Giffen, H. F. Boyle, J. M. Blackbam, the Bannermans, and H. H. Massie first made England put forth her best in Test ma'ches on English soil. The early Aus­ tralian teams were selected to make a complete combination—that is, as far as possible. Each team had its hitters, each its sticker or steady bats, each had its slower bowler, and each two reliable wicket-keepers. You never saw Dave Gregory or Murdoch or Trott send in the two most brilliant batsmen to open the innings. They acted on the maxim laid down by Mr. A. G. Steel in his chapter on Captaincy in the Badminton Library that “ two very fast iungetting batsmen should not be sent in together; they are apt to tun each other a bit off their legs.” When you see Hayward going in with Maclaren to open for England, you see a rock at one end and— well, a rock at the other end. And how handsomely has it paid England. And when Hayward was left out of the team in 1902, what happened f Trumper and Duff are easily the most glorious opening pair one has ever seen, but each is too daring, too brilliant, too quick, too willing, too grand an exponent of the game, delight­ ful, to make the ideal partner for the other. J. J. Lyons and A. C. Banner- man, or H. H. Massie and A. C. Banner- man, or P. S. McDonnell and A. C. Ban- nerman were a better “ combination” from the point of view of generalship, yet not quite ideal, for A.C.B. was rather too unaggressive. “ There was no flash, no cock-a-hoop about him, but firm he was, and steady as the Pyramids,” as Richard Nyren puts it in his cricket classic. ICHARD DAFT’8 11Nottingham*hire Marl.” — Particulars apply, Radcliffe on-Treiit, Notts. [A d v t .'* ©omtfponfletue. The Editor does not hold himself responsible for tie opinions of his correspondents. THE FUTURE OF CRICKET. 2.—T he E clipsb of the A mateur . To the Editor oj C r ic k b t. S ir , —In further considering the future of cricket, one is compelled reluctantly to wonder how long the present tension between amateur and professional players shall continue. And in speaking of the former, let it be understood that the term amateur is used in its old-fashioned tense, and is in no way accepted as covering the status of what has been more lately referred to as sham-amateurism or prommateurism. In a recent article, a most delight­ ful cricket writer aired a sugges­ tion which has much to recommend it, though it is, I fear, a dream hardly likely to be realised. This was in effect, the creation of a new form of county championship, confined solely to amateur players, Major Trevor specifi­ cally using the term in the sense as already defined. And what possibilities are conjured up by the idea ! Imagine a week, or a fortnight, at Lord’s devoted to a sort of glorified—from the cricket point of view, Oxford and Cambridge, Eton and Harrow Carnival. When the preliminary ties have been cleared off on local grounds, the winners of the various district or territorial groups should come to town for the champion­ ship proper. Certainly such a fortnight would be a huge blessing to Lord’s, where the matches lose interest year by year. Certainly, too, cricket—using the term in its old-fashioned sense —in many ways would gain. For with Rutland playing Yorkshire in the final, even those connected with neither county could not fail to be interested. But for how long is it likely that the real sporting spirit wculd continue. The mere incentive of rivaly among amateurs would as surely bring up the evils of present-day cricket as they exist among the first-class counties. Goodish billets and sinecures would be offered as inducements to exceptional men “ j ust to persuade them to play for the county one more season.” Little by little—if the compe­ tition really caught on, as I think it might—we should soon see first-class cricket under a different name. For however pure the intention at the start, is it at all likely that weak counties would be content, merely from an old- fashioned idea of sport, to make them­ selves ridiculous, besides wearying them­ selves in the cricket field ? Take it that the idea caught on and was actually carried into effect next year, and that Rutland, for example,—which for all I know to the contrary may possess many excellent and keen cricketers—had to meet Yorkshire. What sort of a match would the smaller county have what time Mr. Jackson and some half-a-dozsn other Cambridge captains of the past, resuscitated for the occasion, were at the wicket or the bowling crease ? The year following Rutland would either decline the contest, failing to see the charm of the sport of it, or would take steps to provide a team more in keeping with its requirements. Apart, though, altogether from its effect on mere amateur cricket, how would this scheme, carried to a successful issue, affect the game as a whole ? If the amateur talent of the country took it up in earnest, there cm ba room for little doubt that the county competition proper, so far as we know it now, would become speedily purely a professional affair. Those counties solely dependant for their existence on gate money could not afford to change, the existing state of things. Others, which rely on their backbone of amateurs and the support of keen and generous county enthusiasts, would speedily drop out. The very methods of the game would undergo a change. Cricket as played by the amateurs might be livelier to watch, and more sporting, but less serious. But how would the growth, or revival of what may be called “ country house” cricket among amateurs affect the play of the cracks ? Let us treat the matter from the point of view of Test cricket. Ho wever naturally gifted a cricketer—let us take Mr. Jack­ son as a concrete example—one could not expect him to properly mature if he confined himself to amateur games only. Had the amateur county championship been in existence, for example, at the time of Mr. Jackson’s Harrow and Cambridge days, it is possible he might have played for England in 1893, as he did, but it is most improbable that a dczsn years later we should find him at the head of the Test match tables of batting and bowling. And what sort of a chance would England hold in Test matches with Australia if the team was composed entirely of professionals ? It has been the fashion among certain cricket scribes to decry the claims of the Twelfth Australian team to be considered with b jme of its predecessors. For the pur­ poses of argument, let us assume that it was second-rate. Well, to what con­ clusion are we driven as a result of the Test matches ? Inevitably that the decadence is general; for however feeble the Australians, it was the most we could do, with all the luck on our side, to over­ come them. And if we but narrowly won with the England team constituted as it was, can anyone contemplate with equanimity the probable result had the amateurs’ places been filled by pro­ fessionals ? Take the game won at Not­ tingham and look up the details, and you shall see that creditable as was the play of the professional members of the side, it was the amateur talent which— leaving out of all question the luck of the game—deciled the struggle. And the same applies to the game at Manchester, if hardly, perhaps, to the same extent. Still, even there amateur bowling obtained ten of the nineteen wickets, and the five amateurs contributed 196 of the 407 runs. And Test cricket is yearly becoming more serious, even in the Impsrial sense. For, as was pointed out in these columns a year ago, the day is not far distant when England, Aus-