Cricket Witness No 1 - Class Peace

139 First-Class Fragility provided bases for national and international cricket. The decline of the provincial manufacturing base and the renewal of the sheer monetary agency of London and its surrounds is at one with that retrogression to a centralised state, almost wholly lacking the checks and balances of strong municipal involvement. Most critical of all, for close on a hundred years there was the relative calm of public demeanour, with a low crime rate, a high level of community discipline and deference and a strong sentiment of acceptable social behaviour. It has been acknowledged in this text that this had its downside of Puritanical censoriousness but, by and large, the crowd could be trusted. It is remarkable how neatly cricket fitted into this social and cultural frame of reference. So tidy is the fit that it is possible to view cricket as a microcosm of society in those decades. It was distinctly middle brow, taking its place, in terms of leisure, alongside the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the novels of Charles Dickens, the cinema and BBC radio in their shared golden epoch, the public library and the municipal park and one or two other bygone cultural icons. These former staples also had a solidity and a more subdued quality, even a slower tempo, than much of modern pastimes which, however enjoyable and brilliant, often generate an ephemeral, racier, fast-moving pace. The difficulty arose when the referential frame was excessively re- carpentered. Interestingly, the new frame looks very much like the pre- 1830s frame, as has been previously hinted. Just to take a tiny cricketing example, the gambling, corruption and misbehaviour that disfigured the game in the Hanoverian and Regency eras has returned. There are moves to give umpires ‘red card’ dismissal powers, such is the disruptive attitude of some players, especially in the recreational game. Whether it is an old format restored or a novel one, the fact remains that cricket qua cricket does not fit snugly. Most cultural artifacts are like old soldiers. They do not die, they simply fade away, usually very slowly, for there are frequently adherents who mourn their passing and cling on to their remnants for as long as possible. Steam train addicts are an illustration. First-class county cricket may be approaching that degree of cultural limbo. This is hardly a revelation. Rowland Bowen in his classic if controversial revisionist history of cricket writes of the sport’s ‘sudden and complete’ decline, concluding ‘It will continue, and in less than a hundred years, those who have enjoyed cricket will probably be a handful of dodderers; an episode in the social history of England, and to some extent of the world, will have closed.’ 1 That was 1970 – and Rowland Bowen was canny enough to allow a hundred years for what Charles II might have termed ‘an unconscionably long time a-dying’. There are still fifty-odd years to go – and Rowland Bowen had not been in a position to factor in the razor blades of Gillette, the tobacco of Benson and Hedges and the numerous insurance policies that came to cricket’s aid by way of corporate sponsorship. Nor was he able to witness – he died in 1975 - the latest inventions and practices of ODI cricket. For all that, his prophecy in respect of English first-class cricket could well be on track.