Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

111 A column in ‘The Cricketer’ for their own land’. He was years ahead of future decision-making in advocating some cricket on Sundays, though he gave the caveat that there must be opportunities to attend church before or after play. By 1931 his local club at Blackheath was regularly playing on Sundays. In the same season, a year after England had been defeated by Australia when standards of play were being examined, he wrote: ‘ The fact is that there are too many first-class counties, but any suggestion of making two divisions would be at once pooh-poohed by all and sundry’. If he foresaw the future there, he did not do so for female cricket. ‘It is very doubtful whether any really high standard can ever be attained by them. It is as well to learn to walk well before you advertise the fact abroad that you are able to run with the best.’ Leg theory and bodyline Inevitably he had to write about both leg theory and bodyline bowling. He made an early reference to ‘ fashionable leg theory’ with ‘three policemen waiting to catch you out’ in The Cricketer in June 1928. England were shortly to embark on a tour of Australia. He was not troubled. ‘Our batsmen are of the wily order; they know the traps and avoid them, arming themselves also to the teeth in case of any mishap. Many dread the Tests in Australia next winter. It will be a test of endurance.’ In July and August 1932, and writing before the full team to Australia for the 1932-33 series had been chosen, he wrote about two English possibilities, Voce and Bowes. As to Voce: ‘Should he bowl over the wicket with four slips or round the wicket with four short legs is a moot point, but the old hands would say that the one style is cricket and the other is not.’ Following tactics by Bill Bowes, in a Yorkshire v Surrey match that disturbed onlookers, he wrote: ‘ Bowes should alter his tactics. He bowled with five men on the on-side and sent down several very short-pitched balls which repeatedly bounced head high and more. That is not fast bowling; indeed it is not cricket and if all the fast bowlers were to adopt his methods there would be trouble, and plenty of it. Bowes is a fine natural bowler. He must stand 6 ft 5 in and therefore brings the ball down from a great height, but he would be a far better bowler if he concentrated on length and cut out all of this short stuff. He is not doing justice to himself, and to his ability, or to the game of cricket by such methods.’ Those were fine words and the irony is that his employer Pelham Warner was glad to print them. A few months later Warner would be manager of the English side in Australia, and see Larwood, Voce and Bowes bowl in this disapproved way – and worse. Eight months on, in The Cricketer Spring Annual 1933, Frank Mitchell wrote after the bodyline series: Let it be said here plainly that the writer thoroughly disagrees with bowling which is obviously a direct attack by the bowler upon the batsman. He would have no hesitation in instructing his bowler to attack the leg stump of a player who was notoriously weak there, but he would at once take off a man who neglected the wicket for the