FILLED WITH DISGUST

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1051, 15 August 1930, Page 9

FILLED WITH DISGUST

CRICKET MYSTERY SEEN BY HOME CRITICS CHAPMAN NONPLUSSED LONDON, Wednesday. The controversy aroused by the exclusion of A. P. F. Chapman from England’s team to meet the Australian cricketers in the final test match to be commenced on Saturday at the Oval continues unabated. Chapman says he cannot throw any light on the mystery. The fact has been revealed that the meeting of the selectors at which the decision was made was one of the most prolonged of recent years. Ordinarily the team should have been announced last Saturday but the disagreement was so marked that Rhodes, one of the selectors, was asked to remain in London over the week-end. The decision to drop Chapman was not reached until after a very long discussion. The views of J. C. White, another of the selectors, as to the dropping of Chapman, are not definitely known, but it is stated that there was a distinct cleavagb on the committee, with a slight majority on the side of the drastic change. H. D. G. Leveson-Gower favoured Freeman’s inclusion, but Rhodes opposed it. A. E. R. Gilligan, in the “ NewsChronicle,” says: “Chapman’s omission will be remembered for years to come as one of the biggest cricket blunders ever made. It is a national calamity—even more, it is nothing short of a crime. I have been a great supporter of the selection committee, but now their attitude fills me with disgust. “Like thousands of sportsmen in Britain I am at a loss to understand their stupid mistake. The Australians are laughing up their sleeves.”