ARE AUSTRALIANS NATURAL CRICKETERS?

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 468, 25 May 1912, Page 3

ARE AUSTRALIANS NATURAL CRICKETERS?

Mr P, F. Warner contributed a series of articles to the "Westminster Gazette," during the recent tour, and in one of his later letters he gave a most interesting review of cricket in Australia.

It is fifty years ago since the first team of English cricketers landed in Australia. How different was that first team, with their bearded, whiskered faces and solidly built frames, from the slim, youthful, almost boy-ish-looking cricketers of to-day. At that time Australia had everything to learn from Stevenson and hia men, and right well did they learn thair lesson—too well, we Englishmen are apt to think at timea. What memories those fifty years bring back—that first test match on the Melbourne ground on 1877, when Charles Ban nerman played such a great innings; that May day at Lord's in 1878 when a powerful M.C.C. team went down before Spofforth, the greatest bowler the world has ever seen, and the fame of Australian cricket was established fur all time; then the Test match at the Oval two years later, when Grace, our champion, scored 152; and Murdoch, Autralia's champion, 151, and, finally, that never-to-be-forgotten 7-run AutraUan victory in 1882, when Spofforth bowled as probably no man ever bowled before or since. One could write pages about the many famous battles between England and Australia, and pages about the men who took part in thetn. When one comes to think of it, it is' an extraordinary fact that a country with a population of five millions can produce cricketers to hold their own with cricketers of the mother country, which has a population of forty odd millions. What is the characteristic that has brought Australian cricket, in such a short space as one reckons time nowadays, right into the front rank? In a word, pluck. Grit and courage have long been the outstanding. features of Australian cricket. The great 1882 Test match was won chiefly through the power of battling against odds; ro waß the Manchester match in 1902; and a more recent example of this doggedness in a tight corner was when I was last hear, some eight years ago, on the occasion of the first Test match at Sydney. In that game Australia were 292 runs behind on the first inninrs, but in the end they came very near to beating us. Their performance on that occasion was a shining example of grit and courage, and a magnificent tradition for future generations. What is this cricket that Britishers are so keen about. Many will say that it is but a game, but surely it is something more that that; it is and institution, a part of the people's life; nay, almost a passion with some. It has got into the blood of the nation and wherever British men an women are gathered together, there will the stumps be pitched. From Lord's to Buluwayo, and from Melbourne to the Spanish Main, cricket flourishes, and is played with eagerness and joy. The game has become a symbol of all that is straight and upright, and it is no uncommon thing to read in the newspapers that such-and-such an action or line of policy is "not cricket," if that policy is open to the charge of not being ''above board." And tnen what friendships a cricketer makes; his actual participation in the game on the field may last only a few years, but the friends he makes through cricket, and because or cricket, last a lifetime. Cricket, indeed, is the most sportsmanlike and catholic of all games, and the crown of its influence is the good fellowship which accompanies it. Cricket makes for discipline and unselfishness, while it produces good temper and kindly feeling, and an appreciation of one's opponents. As everyone knows, a great Imperial tournament between England, Australia, and South Africa is to be held in England this year. That tournament represents the culmination of the growth of cricket throughout the British Empire, and England is waiting to welcome Australia and South Africa with enthusiasm.

Until that famous day at the Oval | in ISB2 Englishmen were accustomed I to think that they stood alone as cricketers, but that great 7-run victory awoke Enlgand to the fact that here indeed was a sturdy son cf hers, who meant to be at least her equal, and sometimes her superior. In recent years we have seen the rise of South Africa, and who knows but that other children of the mothercountry may yet throw down the cricketing gauntlet [to us. All England is eagerly anticipating this triangular tournament, for not only will it have a value from a purely cricketing point of view, but, looked at Imperially, it must do much good. It will bring Austraila and South Africa nearer to the mind of the average Englishman, who will feel that in games, as in the more serious affairs of life, the British Empire is one. In conclusion, it is the bounden duty of all who wield any influence or have any authority in any way in cricket to keep the game right and straight and untarnished, so that we may hand down to our succesorss a goodly heritage.