Cricket 1914

J u l y 18, 1914. THE WORLD OF CRICKET. 349 L o r d “ Y a w k s h i r e ” : How I detest those averages! Y o r k sh ir e have had more than their share of trouble w ith their bowlers this season. Hirst, Drake, and Rhodes have all suffered from strains or other injuries ; Rhodes, indeed, has a more serious trouble in the form of a rupture. A t the present moment only Booth, of the regular men, is quite sound. They could do w ith cheerful, hard-working Schofield Haigh just now. the game to-day as in the later nineties, when there was an extraordinary rage for it ; but he thought there was suffi­ cient interest now. He contested the theory that the chief thing the average spectator cared about was a finish. He was sure that seeing good play counted for far more than this. P h ilip N ew l a n d , who came to England as second wicket-keeper of the 1905 Australian Team, was lying seriously ill in a private hospital when the last mail left Australia. “ M a y n e v . ‘ T h e M e lb o u r n e A g e will not go into the courts. This was the libel action brought by E . R. Mayne against a newspaper firm on account of its publication of articles alleging that the Australian Team in America was stranded for want of funds. The case has been settled, “ satisfactorily to both sides,” out of court, says the Sydney Referee. L ord H aw k e admitted that professional batsmen could not afford to take as many risks as amateurs ; but he hoped the professionals would remember that the public liked to see bright and attractive cricket, and also that they (the professionals) were dependent upon public support. When he had the disposal of talent money he had been inclined to favour the maker of a bright 50 in preference to the maker of a stodgy 75. P r e sid in g at the annual meeting of the Cricketers’ Fund Friendly Society on Monday evening, both Lord Hawke and Lord Harris made seme interesting remarks upon the game as at present played. T he average tables are a bugbear to Lord Hawke, as he has before admitted. But the men who play for their averages— and there are some of them, though every steady player is not to be classed among them— forget one impor­ tant point. L ord H ar ris said th at too many of the critics were men who had no practical experience of the thing they criticised. He did not think that there was as much enthusiasm for T his is that the people who study the averages closely are largely the people who take most of their cricket on paper. The regular— even the occasional— spectator cannot work up any enthusiasm over Pokem ’s 50 per innings or so, with a time average of two hours per innings or thereabouts. And the spectator is the man who pays at the gate.