PLACE FOR CRICKET

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 65, 3 April 1937, Page 14

PLACE FOR CRICKET

THE VILLAGE GREEN YEEWS of melbourne herald Unashamedly, all Austraiia is watching with intense interest the battle which has been joined at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, declared the Melbourne Herqld editorially during the course of the final Test match between England and Austraiia. 'i future of the nation will not be modified to any appreciable degree by the oUteome of the match. If Austraiia loses, the national prestige will not suffer. Victory for England would not be a turning point in history. Why, then, all this extraordinary keenness? Surely it is that, among a people which loves cricket, a decisive Test match is cricket at its best. In recent years much has been written and talked aboUt the effect of Test cricket on the game itself. It has been suggested that Test cricket robs batting of its sparkling gaiety; that it makes the game a war of attrition instead of a picturesque, light-hearted national institution Mr. D. R. Jardine, for example, has been utterly

disillusioned. "Cricket," he said recently, "is the best game to play or to talk about, but the place to play it is the yillage green." Mr. Jardine is not the only man who suffers from village green nostalgia. It is a fairly widespread form of snobbery and affectation. It conjures up a f&miliar picture of the doctor and the parson and the blacksmith pufdxig between the wickets and drinking lemonade under an awning, while the gaffers drowse under a June sun. The youiig master comes down from Oxford for the game, and hits up a

f'sparkling half-century off the patson's long hops. There are no barrackers. for the gaffers are all asleep; and, though the rivary is keen, elderly cricketers are not seen gnawing their sticks, for, after all, the game's the thing. Mr. Jardine, however, has forgotten Austraiia. There are cricketers here and a moderate degree of talent. But there are no village greens. There are a few btimpy gi ounds attached to country hotels; but the village green cricket is usually played in side streets or Open paddocks with a "compo" bail and a cduple of kerdsene tins. Raw talent is shaped in these games; yet thousands do nOt watch them. And

thousands would not go to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to see the parson and the doctor and the young master. The reason, naturally enough, may be that Bradman and Hammond play better cricket; and, indeed, play at their best in Test cricket. On the debit side, one may say that Test cricket produces a nervous tension which can inhibit a player, who may do himself less than justice through overcaution. But is that not a criticism of his temperament rather than a criticism of Test cricket? Apart from that factor, Test cricket is incomparably superior to any other type of cricket. In the first place, the tempo of the game is heightened. This tempo is indicated not by the state of the scoring board, but by the nature of the cricket. The struggle between bat and ball becomes so intense that every move is significant and related to the pattern of the whole game. The nervous tension reaches out to the onlookers; they become, psychologically at any rate, part of the game. It is not surprising that the superlative moments of cricket occur in Test matches — the impossible catch, the most brilliant pieces of fielding, the fastest and the subtlest bowling.