Sport: Cricket

If the sun never sets on the British empire, then there is seldom a time when it is not shining down on a cricket game. Last week, when London was in darkness and the old, sick king stirred in the night at Buckingham Palace, the most important cricket of the year was being played in Melbourne, Australia. This was the third match in the series played yearly between a team of picked Britishers and a team of picked Australians for the “ashes.”*

The English had already won the first test at Brisbane, and the second at Sydney. The third, if they won, would clinch the series for them. Since a test usually lasts for a week or more, the inhabitants of Melbourne had plenty of time to watch. On the first days of play, the crowd was small. Then word got around that the Australians were making a fine stand and the grandstands began to fill.

At the end of their first innings of the third match, England had 417 and Australia 397. When Australia had completed its second inning, the tourists went in to bat on a wicket that after a rain and five days of play was ridged and torn so that it favored the bowlers; it did not seem possible that the English batsmen would be able to reach 332 runs to win. Jack Hobbs gave the visitors their start; shortly after the interval for tea, he was bowled out with 49; Herbert Sutcliffe continued with Jardine and the day’s play ended with nine wickets to fall.

Sutcliffe was at last given leg-before-wicket after he had scored 135, his sixth century of the present series, batting for six hours and 15 minutes. The wickets fell faster when he was removed. As the afternoon lengthened, it at last seemed likely that England would pass the Australian total. Finally, Geary, the bowler who in an earlier test had retired five Australian batsmen in 18 overs, made the winning hit.

There are two more tests still to be played. Using a scheme that baseball magnates would like to apply to the World Series, cricketers do not give up their game as soon as one side has won. The series will be resumed at Adelaide on January 25.

Cricket is liked by almost every British citizen, no matter where he lives. It is played with a ball harder than a baseball, with big flat bats, with eleven men on a side, two batters (one at each wicket), a bowler, a wicketkeeper, and an interval of tiffin. The professional members of a team eat in a part of the clubhouse separate from the amateurs’ and their names are printed without “Mr.” in the lineups.

The purpose of the game, offensively, is to knock down with the ball either or both of two loose-balanced wickets which it is the batsman’s business to defend. When one of the batsmen knocks the ball away from his wicket, he may exchange places with the other batsman, thus scoring a run. The procedure of scoring does not greatly differ from that used in two-old-cat; but cricket is unique among all games for profound, untechnical and subtle reasons. Its rhythm, the pace at which its climaxes are reached and at which they disappear, is slower than anything except the growth and decay of empires.

Besides the test matches between England and Australia, the great cricket matches are played between the public schools of Britain—Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Westminster—between counties, or between professional teams. The greatest of all professionals is famed Jack Hobbs, one of the best batsman in cricket, who made 16 centuries last season. He played with the English team in Melbourne last week, received a tremendous ovation for his 49 runs made in England’s final innings.

Later, interviewed concerning his reported retirement, he repeated his willingness to stand down and give others a chance if England should win the third test.

*In 1882, when Australia won her first matchon English ground, cartoonists pictured an urncontaining the ashes of British cricket. Sincethen the teams have contested for the “ashes.”