Cricket 1910

M ay 19, 1910. CRICKET A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. The construction of the Demon Drivers is fully described in The Evolution of a Cricket Bat , which may be obtained free upon applica­ tion. CRICKET IMFROVED MAKE KEEP THEIR S H A P T l AS LO N CERl CATALOGUE UPON APPLICATION. E M I T S RACKETS (.A tA LO dU E UPON APPLICATION. CATALOGUE UPON APPLICATION. BU V J V J U ■ c ,5°C'AT,0/ v f W l M I O IMPROVEDMAKE-KEEP THEIR SHAPE-LASTLONGER CATALOGUE UPON APPLICATION. BUS f SNEY’S DEMON D R I V E R S ( ARE OUTAND OUT THE BEST. 76 ^OTHER grades 7 -6 -S f- A-6-A-3r6 -3 r-2 re -Z r- CATALOQUB UPON APPLICATION TO GEO. G. BUSSEY & Co.. L t d . 36 & 38, Queen Victoria St., LONDON. Manufactory — Timber Mills — PECKHAM, S.E. ELMSWELL, SUFFOLK. Agents all over the world. THE HUMBUG OF COUNTY CRICKET. VIEWS OP M e . C. B. FRY. County cricket is riddled with humbug—so writes Mr. C. B. Fry in the June issue of “ Fry’s Magazine,” just published. That is the truth (he continues), and that is the reason why schemes of “ reform ” are foredoomed to failure; schemes that waste their ingenuity upon symptoms and do not touch the disease. Let us examine the matter a little—smiling in our sleeves, if we like, at the serious polities of the game. To begin with, we all of us accept quite genially the radical fiction that a county eleven is representative of the cricket of a county in the same sense that an Australian eleven is representative of the cricket of Australia. It is a fiction and radical. A county eleven is not selected from the clubs in the county; it is a separate group of players who play as a team under the name of a club which is called a county cricket' club, but which really has no connection with any cricket in the county except that played by its own eleven. A county eleven is not representative of the cricket of a county; it is an eleven retained by an individual club which chooses to call itself a county cricket club. This may appear an exaggeration of the state of the case. No doubt certain excep­ tions can be picked out. But in the main it is quite absurd how many players, both amateur and professional, who are regular members of county elevens neither have, nor ever have had, any genuine connection with any cricket in the county except that of the county club. Birth aud residence do not concern the argument. And, of course, the players are not to blame, nor is their indi­ vidual cricket the less interesting. Moreover, even players originally drawn from the club cricket of a county, and these are few, cease to have any connection with it from the time they become regular “ county ” players; they are totally merged into the retained team. There is no particular harm in the fact that certain big clubs maintain regular teams of skilled players and call themselves oounty cricket clubs. But local patriotism of a genuine kind will never rally solidly to such clubs ; never as it would to far less skilful teams genuinely representative of the cricket of a county. Why do we pretend that it ought, might, and must ? Because we humbug ourselves as to the nature of county elevens. Then, again, a county cricket club as a club is rather curiously composed. Its cricket is played by a team which consists chiefly of paid employes who are not mem­ bers, and a sprinkling of amateurs who are only members because they want to play in the most skilled kind of cricket. The mem­ bers themselves are really merely season- ticket holders, for the most part: that is, they join the club because they get better seats, more convenience, and a better bar­ gain all round than by paying at the gate and at the doors of grand stands. The members who join because they are genuine cricketers at heart are comparatively few. County cricket clubs as clubs differ from all other crioket clubs; they are not eminent examples, as they are supposed to be, of what genuine cricket clubs should be. There are no genuine cricket clubs whose elevens are accepted as “ first class,” except the M.C.C. and Oxford and Cambridge. The argument is not that county clubs are bad institutions, which would be absurd, but that they are not what we all pretend they are, founding elaborate schemes and reforms on the basis of this pretence. But a greater pretence, a greater fiction far, is the County Championship. It is scarcely worth while to investigate its weakness and unsatisfactory nature, which are so well known. We know that the best team generally comes out top, that the general order means little or nothing, that a team can be champion with­ out ever having played, say, the second and third on the list, and, in a word, that the championship is a considerable farce. But we do not treat it as a farce. We study the championship table. We allow the news­ papers to foster the faked up competition, and we allow it to dominate and spoil first- class cricket. There is a fair amount of humbug in this. But what is worse humbug is gravely and perpetually to discuss reforms of the system of scoring and of the arrange­ ment of the competition, when we know perfectly well that the game of cricket essentially, in its very nature, is entirely un­ suited to a serial competition on the League principle. If the county clubs did not think that the pretence of the championship promoted gate receipts they would immediately cease to bother themselves about it. For everyone with any immediate knowledge of flrst-olass cricket knows that the championship spoils the game for the players—if they really aim at success under its limiting influence—and for the spectators. If each match were played on its own individual merits the players would play fancy free, and gaily. As it is the championship, which makes the loss of a match so penal in the points, sits on the chest of nearly every team. The amusing part of it is that even if a county club decided not to enter the championship and to play home and home matches on a free basis, the newspapers would neverthe­ less enter that club for the championship by the simple expedient of including it in the championship table. . . . But perhaps the greatest farce connected with county cricket is the expense of its upkeep. Why should two-thirds at least of the county clubs year after year spend more than their income ? What is the justification ? There is really none, except that cricket is in itself a very beautiful game and a fair object on which to waste money. Even then it is not easy to see why county clubs, which cannot afford it, should play so many highly paid professionals. The professionals are the only people who gain by the expenditure, so much so, that the case is very nearly that county clubs are run for the benefit of the professionals in the retained team. . . . It is agreed that there are too many matches played. But the Yorkshire authorities, for instance, say they cannot shorten their programme because of the professionals. The Yorkshirecaptain himself so explained the matter to me a few years ago. “ Yes, far too many matches; but how else make it worth while for the pros. ? ” But why maintain county cricket on a too expensive basis of professionalism ? Why, especially when you present it as the highest expression of “ our great national game ” ? County cricket should be independent of gates. It should be run at a less cost, and county clubs should have more members. Not the present season-ticket members, but genuine amateursof cricket, who are innumer­ able and who would join county clubs if county teams were less pretentious and more representative of the cricket of counties.