The Englishman's Cricket
By JOHN ARLO TT
ENGLISH cricket is less a game than a reflection of the English. The length and form of a cricket match, the varia- tion and intensity of its stresses, make for self-revelation of the players. Thus, it both reflects, and is moulded by, the characters of those who play it. As well as English cricket there are, therefore, the technically similar, but characteristically unique, forms of the game shaped in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, West Indies, India and, to a less extent, in Fiji, Holland, Ceylon, America and Corfu. England is the original home of the game, where it is long and deeply established. Many an Englishman who has not touched bat or ball these twenty years may call himself a cricketer. Does he not eagerly take up his morning paper throughout the summer to follow the course- of Somerset's matches, or the bowling of. James Sims, of Middlesex? This makes hint no less an English cricketer than the persevering wicket-keeper of the second eleven of the local club—or Leonard Hutton.
The critic, the statistician, the historian, the spectator, the umpire, the groundsman's brother are all cricketers equally with the captain of Yorkshire—in England. They subscribe to the pattern of the game. It is, perhaps, significant that, whereas other games are governed by rules, cricket has " laws." More- over, in most other games, infringements of the rules are frequent and the penalties imposed are regarded as normal hazards of the game. At cricket, however—with the exception of the technical ' no ball " for over-running the crease—the laws are practically never infringed. A case of " obstructing the field," ' hit ball twice," " throwing or jerking " does not occur once in twenty years. The laws have been changed, have even been changed by agitation and revolution. John Willes, after being " no-balled ' for the " new/ throwing bowling " at Lord's in 1822, jumped on his horse and rode out of cricket for ever. With that exception, the rebels have always been accommodated in the reformed game in comfortable relationship with the reactionaries. M.C.C., with power to advise but not to compel, has balanced progress and need for reform with a conservative watchfulness over the character of cricket. The constant technical development of the game has demanded those changes of the laws which have been made in the name of common sense. Hence, at bottom, the cricketer observes the laws of his own period and accepts the decisions of the umpire because, to do otherwise would be to destroy the shape of the contest. There are those who argue that the true aim of our cricket should be to win Test Matches against Australia. The history of cricket shows that first pne country and then the other has had its period of supremacy, that good English elevens have lost and poorer ones have won. Common sense observes that only one side can win at a time, and that, if the same side won every time, the competition would be pointless. Only the argument to Ovhich Hitler subscribed, namely, that victory in a sporting event proved some superiority in the nation of the winner, could claim the winning of Tests as the end rather than a single aspect of the game. The blindness of this argument is the failure to recognise that the most important attribute of cricket is the happiness it produces in those who subscrib9, to it— whose enjoyment is often in inverse proportion to their skill. Two hundred men in England play what is called " first-class " cricket, but some hundreds of thousands are cricketers. The happiness 'of the " rabbit," rather than the success of our Test team, is the touchstone of English cricket. So long as that standard is maintained your cricketer will not desire to change the shape of the game in detail or its character in general.
The sensible conformity of the cricketer probably gave rise to the expression "not cricket" to suggest an unfair act. Unfor- tunately, thelterm is now often used in a way which suggests that. cricketers will quixotically, even priggishly, renounce an advantage legitimately won or schemed. It is important to note that the expression originated in Edwardian and not Victorian times. Indeed, who were the Victorians, with W. G. Grace, the greatest and wiliest of them all, as their reigning champion, to suggest that cricket was not a game to be played with the utmost rigour and artfulness within the laws? " Look at those geese," said W. G. to an opposing batsman, pointing up into the sun. " Can't see them," said the batsman. " They've gone behind the trees," said W. G., and then, to his fast bowler, " Plant a yorker on his leg stump, Fred, while the sun's still in his eyes." He would trick you if he could, and took good care you did not trick him. He played cricket with every scrap of his thought and guile, and lifted the game from a country pastime to its modern level of complexity.
The character of cricket has not changed substantially since its origin as the sport of country craftsmen who employed in their play their particular gifts of skill of hand and shrewdness. Indeed, Richard Nyren, chronicler of Hambledon and always anxious to demonstrate the integrity of his clubmates, tells with relish how, upon a given signal, Lear, the Hambledon wicket- keeper, wotild deliberately fumble a ball and allow it to pass him so that, when the batsmen ran, Noah Mann, stationed for that precise purpose, would pounce upon the ball and put the wicket down. Mid-Victorian cricketers considered it a compliment when they described William Clarke, captain of the All-English XI, as an " old fox." Clarke took his business of bowling seriously, and would watch his future opponents at net-practice to observe such of their weaknesses as he might exploit later when bowling to them in a match.
Will the captain of today use his fastest bowler against poor batsmen? Will he have a stroke from a good batsman deli- berately misfielded, allowing him one run so that the bowler may attack his weaker partner ? Indeed he will if he has the tactical acumen a good captain should possess. Let us suppose, for instance, that, in a " needle " match—England versus Aus- tralia, Yorkshire versus Lancashire or Sherborne St. John versus Monk Sherborne—one team needs four runs to win with its last two batsmen together. The batsman who has to face the bowling has already been, injured by the opposing fast bowler. Does the captain of the fielding side put on his fast bowler, since this batsman, his confidence shaken, will be the more vulnerable to this particular bowler? Or does he put on a slow bowler, from whom the batsman may well, if only from relief, hit the required four runs? If he takes the latter course, may he not have betrayed the efforts of the ten players under him who have given of their best to win the match?
Cricket, with its scope for the epic, the tactical, the technical, is, at its best, a form of war without bloodshed or hate. The yielding of legitimate advantage is a denial of the effort to win, which is the essence of cricket as of any other contest. Cricket is a game of high skill and consider'ble technical complexity, as much part of the pattern of English life as the cricket-pitch is part of the English scene. The grandstands and goalposts of a football-ground stand out rawly in the landscape, but the cricket- ground belongs there as naturally as a cornfield. Cricket has been a miniature mirror of the society in which it is played, so that Regency elegance, the Industrial Revolution, Victorian prosperity and expansion, modern specialisation—and, at times, elaboration—have all been faithfully reflected in the game.
One of its greatest charms is that uncertainty which provides the oppoitunity for the epic. An expert billiards-player can go to the table with reasonable certainty of making a large break. A batsman of equal eminence may be ,bowled out by a bowler of much lower standard, while, in the same innings, a negligible batsman, going in last, may score the runs which win the match, There is beauty in the pattern and rhythms of white-flannelled players against the green grass background. The game has pro- duced art, minor but unmistakable. Thus the phrase " not cricket " means, in fact,' something less quixotic than some moralisers have suggested and, simultaneously, something far greater than their use of the term indicates. That is not cricket " which denies the qualities of a game which is reasonable, skilful, carried out with the participants' full industry and effort. frequently epic, aesthetically pleasing, and native to the English soil and people.
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