Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

108 A column in ‘The Cricketer’ His observations on the Canterbury week of 1932 reveal his pleasurable, and perhaps expensive tastes. ‘There are the usual array of prettily decorated tents, the I.Z., the BB’s, the Regiment, the Mayor’s, the local M.P.’s and the Conservative Club. The ground is surrounded by cars from the Rolls-Royce of the well-to-do, to the Morris of those who possess but a modicum of this world’s goods. In the evenings there are the theatrical performances of the Old Stagers and the balls which are always crowded.’ The middle-class owners of Morris cars might have felt aggrieved at their downgrading in the social hierarchy. Yet in the next Cricketer issue he shows concern for the admission charge to the Canterbury ground of 2/- rather than the usual 1/- , not an issue that would normally trouble the devotees gaining free admission to the Canterbury tents. His concern for the man-in-the-street spectator resonates through his articles. Early campaigns He was a campaigning writer, always encouraging the selection of young players both for their counties and for MCC touring parties. Very early in the 1927 season he had picked Walter Hammond, K.S.Duleepsinhji, A.P.F.Chapman and D.R.Jardine as outstanding players. Hammond rewarded him with 1000 runs in May! When he saw Somerset play, he was especially pleased with a young colt called Wellard. That endorsement of the to be famous striker of a cricket ball is not altogether surprising when in midsummer 1927 he wrote ‘the soldier’s motto is “attack, attack and again attack”. The rearguard action so much favoured by some of our present day players should be taboo.’ Perhaps that was unfair. Even Mitchell sometimes played for a draw as he had done against Yorkshire in his one famed innings of 1912. When in 1928, he commented critically, that in a recent match he had witnessed 22 half-volleys going unpunished in a half hour of 14 overs, he clearly could not have imagined that 14 overs in a full hour of play might one day be almost the bowling norm. He enthused about Learie Constantine, having seen him score a century in sixty minutes and made a comparison with others: ‘Present day bowling can be hit if only you will go for it. To stand shuffling in your crease with your bat in front of you is no use.’ Away from his observation of the players he assertively raised other issues and his writing in 1927 can be taken as an example, to be typical of many future years. He had a fervent desire for evening cricket, with a day’s play starting at noon, and not ending until after 7.00pm to enable the working man to arrive after his employment to be admitted at half price to watch some decent play. He condemned the universal closure at 4.30pm on the third day of the championship games, in theory done to enable players to get to their next county destination that evening, and he suggested with confidence that fit young players should have no difficulty in obtaining suitable rest in the comfortable night trains that ran between all major centres of population. He gave Scarborough to Hastings as an example of such a service. In a wish for evening cricket he was several generations ahead of his time. He further advocated that matches in May abandoned without a ball being bowled should be then played out in September. Now that the fixture lists contain matches throughout April, his thoughts for