CRICKET’S EVIL DAYS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 553, 4 January 1929, Page 6

CRICKET’S EVIL DAYS

IX less troublous times, the carefree native folk of Samoa were wont to play cricket matches for weeks at a stretch. As fast as one hare-footed batsman went out, he was succeeded by another buxom native, until the entire bat-wielding male population of the village was exhausted. It is a far cry from these sun-drenched islands to the cricket grounds of Australia and New Zealand, hut the cult of marathon cricket has spread to both countries under circumstances that are as little in keeping with its happy-go-lucky origin as Eskimo pie on the bill of fare of the Byrd Antarctic Expedition. “One hundred and sixty-eight runs in a day is the slowest rate of scoring ever known in a Test match,” declares P. F. Warner in his comment on the Test game at Melbourne. “Such snail-pace scoring will do the game great harm,” adds F. E. AVoolley, one of England’s most brilliant batsmen, whose very brilliance kept him out of the present series of Tests, where brilliance must play second fiddle to laborious stone-walling. New Zealand, too, has fallen under this baneful influence. Last season, an Australian XI. did not lose a match in the Dominion, but it left behind a depressing legacy of many a day’s weary run-getting, and a reputation as one of the stodgiest sides that ever visited New Zealand. Following in their footsteps, the Otago team at Dunedin this week took the best part of a day to make 78 runs. Worse than this lamentable spectacle, was the effort of an Auckland batsman, who, after his comrades had given the bowling a severe trouncing, wasted a wearisome 48 minutes in getting 13 runs. Oh ! for a couple of sixers by a Chapman, or even by a Horspool of other days. The old players have sounded a note of warning about this new trend in cricket. For once, their criticism is soundly based. It is the public, and not the players, who will eventually decide. All overseas tours depend essentially on the financial support the cricketing public gives to the big matches, and unless the public feels that it is getting a fair return for its money, gate receipts will decline. For their own protection, the governing bodies in cricket must sooner or later give a lead to the players under their jurisdiction, and demand brighter cricket as the first essential to public support.