CRICKET IN ENGLAND

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 77, 17 April 1937, Page 14

CRICKET IN ENGLAND

SJGGE5IH) FEFMaiS INFLTJENCE OF JfflT SEASON* i'JOHN BDLt" THINKING MDOD When. Leicesitershire dramatically announeed that an accumulation of debt had made it neeessary to close down the club no oue acquainted with pounty cricket history believed for a moment that the team would disappear from the championship (writes •'ihe .Watehman" in ihe Londoa Qbserver). Finaacial difficulties «fter wet seasons have heen frequent. I xemember going to what was announeed as the winding-up of Essex in the rejnote past of 1903. The club's coifers vyere empty; further overdrafts were impossible.. But, fortunately, the inquest was held before all the life had ieft the body. Restoratives were pra•Juced from many pockets. Essex a Still with us. Kind frienda had come to the rescue, They always do m such circumitanees, but the S O S if Leicestershire hns been seized upon by those who r«gard crieket merely as * part of the Show world ast a slgn that the game as a whole ia losfng its appeal. The reYoiutionwy party has hoisted the red fiag again, although it pretends that it is showing only a precautionary red light. It dedares even as its disgruntled fathers declared, that the game must die unless it be revolutionarily changed into something unfike its true self. Why is. it that these people deliberately shut their eyes to the influenoe of a wet season, and shriek that a Shortage of cash is due to the shorteomings of cricket's appeal? Is it that occsuse they have not Ihe mind to apprcciate crieket as it stands they ara eager to. seize upon any excuse to 'jazz it up"— -or, rather down— to auit iheir own mentality ? The weather has inevitably conaoUed blahk days in July, while in ; August there were also occasiqns vyhen-not a ball could be bowled in ieveral parts of the country. And in addition there were f«r mara numcraus oceasions when . only a few minufes' play took place :before the ilouds broke again. Kow could diere be good '^gates" in such clreumitances? AJatdtei BntixWi by Bain* Glamorganshlre reporttd that 11 of 15 home mathes were "precacally or totally ruined by rain"; and this was the verdiet of .W.arwickshire apon their loss of £200Q; "The weather was the sole cause, four consecutive Saturdays,. including one Bank Holiday weekrend heing yuined." Then the Derbyshiye oommittee went ! jo far as to say "If we had had rea^ jonable luck in ihe weather we s.hould have made a suhstantial p?oflty hut, as it is, we sball be about £800 down on ihe previous season." Other counties eould tell similar stories. The suggestions— most of them as xncient as ihe flrst bad balance-sheet — put forward as a magic means to aiake counties affluent, seem directly jalculated to tuni any gold that xemains with the clubs to dros?. There h, for example, that moss-grown plan for the teams to be divided into two divisiox^ as in League football,, with 3he faihires of the top group relegated and the successes of the lower group aromoted. Consider what would hap>en to unhappy Xeicestershire if such x scheme could come into operatiojn aext season. In order te confine the irst division to 14 teams, as proposed, Leicestershire, together with two othjrs at the bottom end of last year's •hampionship table, would he cast into i second divisicm. This would mean hat instead of heing able to play Derbyshire, Middlesex, Yorkshire, Sloucestershire, Kent, and other leams of gate-drawing persoaiality, >hey would have to fiii up their fixture ist with matches against such dwelhr§ in the outey darkness, as, Hertf prdr Jhire, Berkshire, Norfolk and pyobably —ihe irpny of it!— ihe second eleyeps if their old opponents. ff anyone can suggest a scheme nore directly calcuiated to reduce al? nost to vanishing point Xeicesterihire's membership and to disgnst that :ountry's most loyal "shilling pu'biic," i should he delighted to hear of it. Flaws In Reform. It is unlikely, too, that P. P. .War^er's well-meant proposal 'to curtail jonsiderably the number of games )layed by ihe firstTclass counties pnd A fntroduce more games of tiie prejentative type— the North-South fype —would heljp cricket finance. Eyen Vith a restricted programme the ciubs vould have to pay the same rent; Siey would have to pay the same >ates; they would have to spend "'as nuch to keep the ground in order, ind there would be little decrease in Jther expenses. A certain sum might ie saved in professkmais' wages in fases where the players are paid so nuch a match, hut the rate of rehuneration is already so small that ;o,ung men, no matter how promising, ire reluctant to turn aside from their »dinary jobs for the precariousness of i cricketer's life. (Against this it is fertain that in some instances a relueed 'fixture list would mean a relueed membership; nor is it pjobabie 5hat the counties' share of the "gates" it the additional representative natehes would he of an appreciab^e imount. Experiences of the past thow that people do not rush to such fames unless they have some Test natch connection, as with a Test trial. Phey prefer a competition. A juggle with fixtures cannot lead hx. Qnokqt must s,tand on its merits is a game. That is why much is to b,e taid for Lord Hawke's reminder that ihere is more in batsmanship than iot getting out. Strokes still matter. Lct the qoaches and the county comnittees impress upon their young men Sit. it is not a cardinal sin to hit the iall in the air, tliat it should be a joint of honour not to allow a slow bowler to dispense with a man in the •\leep," and that it is a slur on the family name to permit a fieldsman to •emain alive in a position in front of ihe wieket le^s than half-a-dozen yards from ihe bat. But even: If evtoj