ENGLAND'S TEST CAPTAIN

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 55, 27 November 1937, Page 17

ENGLAND'S TEST CAPTAIN

IIAMMOND'S EUGIBILITY AUSTRALIA INTERESTED News that Walter Hammond, England's great batsman and champion all-rounder, is to become an amateur, and be eligible to captain England in the Tests next year, is of extreine interest to Australians. For a long time there has been talk of him as captain, but the fact that he is a professional has been a bar. Hammond, as a fact, began his career with Gloucestershire as an amateur, but became a professional after only a few games. Like Bradman he is a man with a wonderful cricket brain, and he has shown time and again when captaining professional teams, and occasionally when he has acted in an emergency as Jeader of the Gloucestershire side, that he is well fitted for leadership. When he first came to Australia in 1928-29 he stated that on his return to England he would enter upon a business carer and become an amateur. The change did not come about, however, and he has continued to play as a professional. There has been a good

deal of talk recently about the possibility of him forsaking the professional ranks, and he* has been discussed as England's probable captain. There can be no doubt about his fitness for the position. Had he not been a professional it seems likely that he would have been captain of Gloucestershire years ago, and, perhaps, also of England* But the idea is that an amateur should lead county and Test teams, although frequently we have found professionals leading county sides in the absence of a captaffv who was the only amateur in the team, and in 1926 Jack Hobbs had the honour of leading England when A. W. Carr, the official captain, became ill soon after the etart of a Test against Australia. But an amateur captain has always been the rule if possible. Some of the early English teams in Australia had professipnals as leaders, bUt they were privately organised sides, comprising mostly, and in some cases, entirely, men who were professionals. There is no special process by which a professional changes to an amateur in England. 5 All that Hammond had to do was to announce that he intended to play as an amateur, and he is an amateur. There are several instances in England of men changing their status more than once, and in one case a professional who changed to amateurism became captain of Lancashire. Should Hammond actually change and become captain of England, Australians will welcome him in the position, for they respect him, and realise in him not only a wonderful cricketer, but a man who should prove a brainy leader.