Cricket 1906

CR ICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. APRIL 12, 1906. 3© © Sc— j © — D S 0 & C Z 3 = H © $ - = =4- j “ Together joined in Cricket’ s manly toil.” — Byron. no. 7 13 . v o l . x x v . THURSDAY, APEIL 1 2 , 1 9 0 6 . p b i c e 2 d. THE CROWD AND THE FINISH. To cricketers the past winter has been chiefly remarkable for the absenca of the usual suggestions for reform—such as widening the stumps or running a harrow over the wicket. On the other hand a discovery has been made that first-class cricket is losing its interest for the spec­ tator because the matches are not always fought to a finish. Similar discoveries have been made before. For example it was discovered several years ago that the annual match at the Oval between Gentlemen and Players had entirely lost its interest, and the Surrey committee were adjured, almost with tears, to abolish so antiquated a fixture. But possibly the fact that the Surrey committee, heedless of their fate, still continue to place the fixture on their card, and still make an ex­ ceedingly handsome profit out of the match, owing to the readiness of an indis- criminating public to sup­ port it, may induce other committees to reflect that it sometimes pays not to give way to panic. But just at present the idea is prevalent that the public is simply d jia g to see a finish, and as it may not see a finish if it attends on the third day of a match, it severely keeps away. Guarantee a finish and there will be no one left in cities on Wednesdays and Satur­ days to do office work or to attend to any kind of busi­ ness whatever, bo eager is the public to gratify its whim. County clubs will all be rich and flourishing, and the millennium will promptly put in an appearance. The drawn game must be done away with, once and for all, because the public will have none of it. Such is the beautiful dream which now occupies the sleeping andwaking thoughts of a large number of people. One would have imagined that the idea that the public is so particularly anxious to see a finish would have been exploded last year after the two matches, Notts v. Derbyshire at Derby, and York­ shire v. Essex at Leyton. In the first, with a moral certainty of a finish before lunch, not a single person paid for admission ; in the second, with the hope of seeing Yorkshire make a good fight for a draw, many more people attended on the afternoon of the Saturday than on Thursday. But it takes a good deal of persuasion to induce a reformer to come off his perch. Any cricketer who likes to think for himself, and can spare a minute or two for reflection, may easily ask himself a few simple questions and answer them in that time. “ Do people go to a cricket match in order to see a finish ? ” “ No.” “ Is it reasonable to expect that with so much first-class cricket large crowds will attend a match between two of the weaker counties? ” “ No.” “ Are crowds larger than they were twenty years ago ? ” “ Yes.” “ Has the expenditure of counties increased only in correspondence with the size of the crowds?” “ It has increased beyond all due proportion.” “ How then can you expect the lesser counties to pay their way ? ” “ You cannot expect that they will do so.” Modern cricket statisticians devote their earnest attention to all sorts of unimportant matters, but none of themhas ever thought of what might bedone in the way of classify­ ing the numerical value of spectators onthefirst, second, and third day of a match. Yet there is not a county secretary who could not at once tell you that unless the weather upsets everything, the crowd is almost invari­ ably much larger on the first day than on the second, and that on the third day the decrease is very marked in­ deed. Not only county secretaries, but any man who is in the habit of at­ tending matches will, if he tells the truth, say that he has noticed the same thing. Out of the many thousands who attend matches on the first day is there a single man who goes to the ground because he wants to see a finish ? If such a person exists he ought most cer­ tainly to be made a life member of the club as a curiosity. It seems to be clear enough that the reason why many more people go to see a game on the first two days than on the third is that on the third they can never be sure of getting value for their money. The match may be finished early, and what then becomes of the equivalent of the sixpence or shilling ? AN IMAGINARY SCENE OF THE FUTURE.