Looking to the future
Sir: After reading Christopher Hollis's excellent article on cricket (25 July), I find there is one point he made which calls for comment. It is suggested that Yorkshire's insistence that their players are Yorkshire- born has led them into trouble, indeed to humiliation. Admittedly their position in the county championship is not all that could be desired, but it is hardly humiliating.
The main point I would like to make, however, is that Yorkshire's recent lack of form bears no relation to the quality of the team. Form is perhaps the most indefinable and intangible of all the elements in sport, and the county show every sign of regaining form this season. This would put the cham- pionship well within their grasp.
At the risk of being excessively partisan, one can point to at least five players in the current Yorkshire side who could easily be selected for the mcc. I am thinking of Boy- cott, Sharpe, Wilson, Hampshire and Old —and there are others.
First-class cricket is what it says—and it requires class. Yorkshire is not lacking in this particular quality. As far as the colour ques- tiQP is concerned, I am reliably informed that there are a number of coloured York- shiremen on the way up who will be proud inheritors of their right to play for the county.
Nicholas Alderson 10 Wetherby Gardens, London sw5 Sir: Christopher Hollis writes in your pages (25 July): 'Full-time cricketers are not a very intelligent lot of men.' I wonder how many, if any, he has ever known?
Alan Ross Clayton Manor, Sussex
Previous page
