WOODFULL AND CO

Hokitika Guardian, 28 February 1931, Page 6

WOODFULL AND CO

A BRICHT RECORD. SIDcLIGHTS ON THE VICTORS. Tim re is a great deal of duii stuiT written about cricket. Statisics handled without imagination contribute to dullness. “Better twenty run from Jessup than a century from Quaifc.” as some sa d. Let us therefore praise tins latest hook. “With the Australians” by Geoffrey Tebbutt. Its subject is well worn. The Australian team of 1930, with its early loss, its subsequent recovery, and its monstrous scores, has been written abo.ut, until many people are t red of the sudjeet. Air Geoffrey Tebbutt refuses to be a slave to statisics. “A plague, upon figures and averages! he ciies in his introduction. He seeks to tell t.|,e storv of the tour from the person- 1

al angle, to show the Australian as; human beings and not as flannelled mechanisms.” Air Tebbutt, who writes from the Australian Press Associa-i tion office in London, is apparently an Australian. He toured England with the team, writes from intimate person-

~1 Knowledge of his subject, and brings to the task something of the imagination and of tin* charming style which makes Mr Neville Card ns the prince of writers about the game. A PASSION FOR TEA. Mr Tebbutt has much to say about the men, their personal peculiarities and the way England affected them. .Most of the team were complete or “near” teetotallers,, aiid their capacity for tea was prodigious, a preference which was used h.v the ficmperanee party for propaganda purposes. Lady Astor used it in the House of Commons last week. The Australians says ,M.r Tebbutt, were enslaved by tea. 1 When one member of the team asltod for tea at dinner at a house where there was a choice cellar, they thought he was joking. He got the tea found it was China and sent it back for Ceylon. As is well known the cold wenllior ;ii, llie beginning oi the season worries visiting Australians. The team wondered that such a climate could produce cricketers, I lie youngei members may not have realised that if you want to play cricket in England in April and .May you must he prepared to wipe snow off the Dali! Thev were a quiet lot, these Australians. and they did not like foimal receptions, hut they appreciated sonic forms of hospitality, such as visits to country homes, and Mr Tebbutt wrjtes well of the impression tftat the old historic and gracious aspects ol English life made upon these serious-mind-ed voting men. 4he King and Queen won their hearts and there is the most satisfactory of all explanations of the much commented-on picture of players standing in the presence ol Royalty with their hats on. They wore their hats at His .Majesty’s request.

Some of the grounds Air Tebbutt admires ; some he does not. He would drop Leeds as a scene of Test matches unless the A orkshire authorities improved this ground. In Kent, with beautiful trees round the boundary undulating hop fields beyond, old four-in-hands drawn up side bv side with

Roll-Hoyccs and a happy-family picnic atmosphere over all. it seemed that everybody in England ought to piny cricket. And in the Worcester ground, ••in file essentially English atmosphere of tall trees and tall cathedral towers” “one gets the sense of cricket as the

games for the masses rather than a struggle between Titans with a wholly disproportionate number of watching non-combatants”—a game played, as it should be, for the sheer sport of the thing. Here writes the artist and not the mere statistician! Mr Tebbutt has something to say about crowds, including the stereotyped comment that pass es for wit, such as “(let a bag!” when

a player misses a catch. He is sure most of the Australians would rather play in front of an English crowd than one of their own, faking good days with bad. SKETCHES OK PLAYERS.

His pen pictures of the players are full of interest. We have Oldfield, who loos “books and sunsets and new scenes.” explaining why many great cricketers are disappointing with the pen. Success in games demands great concentration, which is a bar to the reception of those impressions that make writing interesting, 'the accomplished onlooker receives. these impression. About Headman Mr Tebbutt is possibly indiscreet. He was not, so this chronicler says, immensely popular with bis mates. It was not a case ol swelled head; Bradman kept bis modesty. Nor did bis comrades grudge him his success, Hut tlmy did feel that the. public was disproportionate in its heroworship; after all, there were others; ami Bradman’s ’aloofness in the hour of success was felt to bo not quite human. We also see Archie Jackson who was expected to he the greatest “star” of the team, so intent on style that he almost forgot to score. And .vhpTt'bbutt’s tribute to Chapman must he added. A captajn with personality and 'driving force wfio should not have been dropped in that last Test. And how gloriously he hit in the second! ' “Cricket is a happy adventure with him.’ Could a cricketer have a better epitaph ?