Days in the Sun

256 Pages·1924·11.22 MB·English

by  Cardus, Neville

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DAv s IN THE ·suN
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A CRICKErER'S JOURNAL
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By .NEVILLE CARDUS
"Cricketer" of " The Manchester Guardian"
f. Author of'"A · Cricketer's Book"
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LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS LTD.
ST MARTIN1S .STREET
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1924
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Pri-nted in Gr at Britain
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MY PRESS-BOX COLLEAGUE'S-\
THE COUNTRY OVER
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!. PREFACE
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intention of t}lis book is mod<::st__Jl wish it•
THE
to be taken as a rather freely compiled journal of
happy ·,expe_riences that have come my way dur
ing the last summer or two on our cricket fields.
Possibly my pages are darkened here ancJ there by
argumentation, but being English I could scarcely
stop seriousn~ss altogether from creeping into my
. pleasures. But I do tr~st that there will be found
in my book at least two communicable enthusiasqis
for every bone of contention.
Some of the chapters are new ; other·s are re
written versions of articles that have already been
printed. I am grateful· to Mr C. P. Scott fo-r
permission to make use of contributions to The
Manchester Guardian ; I am grateful als9 to t~e .
editor of The Empire Review for permissio'Jil;~ t6 _;,,
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reprint " Cricket Fields and Cri_ckyter:s " ; and
to the ·editor of The Observer for perm1ss1on ,''., .•. N
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to reprint " An England Ca.ptain ..
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. :t·.CONTENTS
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PAG&
CRICKET FIELDS AND CRICKETERS II
THINGS THAT MATTER 29
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BY . THREE RUNS 36
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THE BATTLE· OF WITS 47 I
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. r.II: WOOLLEY : . AN J\PPRECIATION .· 55 :1
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THOUGHTS IN THE RAIN • 63
J~ 70
T~ TYLDESLEY ..
GOOD TIDINGS FROM LORD'S 83
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SOUTH AFRICA S . CAPT. AIN • 90
WHITSUNTIDE. AT OLD TRAFFORD .. 95'
ON A F:R,ESH CRICKET SEASON 103
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·AN ENGLAND CAPTAIN I IO··
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TO 'ANY COUNTY' . . 1_:{7.
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W. H. T. DOUGLAS 125
SPOFFORTH 131
' . '. 138
THE rrRST MATCH
RUSSELL OF ESSEX . 145
THE PRESENT 'DISCONTENTS 148
FASHION · IN THE GAME . 156
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CHAMPIONS AT THE OVAL •
CRICKET ,AT BRAMAL~ LANE· 176
OUR VERY · PRECISE YOUNG MEN J86
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CONTENTS
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J• . W. HEf\RN~ • . . '::- 193
-A NOTE ON Cl-lAPMAN 19.8
COOK OF . LANCASHIRE 203
MAKEPEA<:;'E -!\ND HAMBLEDON ,210
A CRY FOR. A JESSOP 217
WALTER BREARLEY 223
RIPENESS IS ALL .232
SILHOUETTES
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ilENDREN
'A MOOD OF GEORGE GUNN 242
CRICKET AT COLCHESTER • 244
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DO,U-Gl,AS IN ACTION ·2
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NO-'F.TH 'V. SOUTH AT OLD TRAFFORD • 249
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(PATE THE BOWLER
M'EAD AS STY,LIST 25-5
HEARNE AT OLD TRAFF-ORD 258
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THE HEROIC CARR -260
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.STRUDWICK 262
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.CRICKET FIELDS AND CRICKETERS . ·.... .·.. )~ ,. ·"·"-' -l(._{
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HE~E is sutely some interaction_ bet~een
a cricket · team and the ground it mainly
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. lives on-.d oes not . the play of the ·s ide
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.! assume tone and colour' from: the scene? York
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shjre cricket has the aspect of "Bramall Lane and
Leeds-dour, a~d telling of stern ~·orµpetitive life
with smoke and real industry about~ ... Can, you
imagine the shrewd Lancashtre ga:me1 · qyiitef~.at~;
?\>~1es
home under a June sky at the Saffrons.
not there c;:ome through the cricket of Sussf~(, the
brown and sunny flavour of Eastbourne and Hove ,
when the. time of day is no9-n an~ the earth see~s·
humming with ·_heat? . The plain homeliness of the
Midlands is express.eel _by Leicestershire cricket ·:
/ it 4.as no airs and graces, no excessive refinements~
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( See an innings by,:Coe, of Leicestershire; and you
ought not to be J~pg guessing from the smack
of rotund nature'·~tfout it that he bas paised the
main: portion- of· his days in the sun on ,a field
with rustic benches running ·~intimately ·round.
No, it is not mere fancy to say : . Show· me
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DA IN THE SUN
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a cricket team in action and tell you. where·
is its native he-ath."
. Take Lord's,. for example. The county spirit,
the:6ir.c11mscribed life denoted by county, is _not
Lor!''s.
for For your good cricketer the ends
of the earth have come to ·a resting-point at
Lord's, and wherever he may be at the fall ,of a
summer's day his face should turn religiously
towards Lord's. Lord's is the Cosmopolis of
cricket. And which county do you find playing
the bulk of its games at _Lord's? Why, 71aturally
enough, tht: team that,. less than them all, gives
-us the definitive county flavour. Middlesex. ha:s
i,~lt:~~19.·een as cosmopolit~n as Lord's itself-a
·sidet:·.·1:gathered . from the earth's ·corners, West
· · lndians, ·Australians, even Y orkshiremen I A man
fr~m Huddersfield sat in the crowd at Lord's a
. seasbn or two ago, and as he watc_hed M.iddlese:x
· beating his-own county he was ~tirred to a ·pro. . ·
tective derision-a derision which he cultivated as
balm for the wound that defeat. at cricket must
always -bring to Yorkshirern~~ :' ·." Middles~~? "
he asked of the throng aro~i~im. " Wheer's
Middlesex? Is it in Lundori? ;, His barb was
wel~ directed ; bondon obliterates the county
bo-µndaries, and neither at Lord's nor at the Oval
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CRICKET F-lELDS AND CRJC,KETER8
do . you feel t~e clannishness. that stings you -in
the atmosphere.o f Old Trafford or Bramall Lane.
To. be .eloquent_, of authentic county demands a
certa:in · narrowness, a contentment witJ)-_.;·,;tlJ.o,se
of•:tf
things of the earth, and that part e' earth,_
which Providence has placed immediately a,t one~s ·
door~tep. County means nature-and at Lord's
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cultivation borne the, winds of the world has
rather expelleq nature.· Watch Hearne, move
fastidiously towards_ a century; watch Bruce or·
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. Crutchley batting, and you are looking on cricket
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played in the drawing-room of civilised mep and. ' • I
women. . And at those times when Bosanqllet
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bowled at Lord'.s there came into .t he ga,~~J~~p;6
w.?l~u:e
touch of exquisite decadence that marks
Cosmopolis. Frankly, I have never yet been able·, ···
to fix Hendren into my notion of Lord's; heds
quite · indecently. ·provincial in his · relish of a
thumping boundary,.
There is, of course, -in the ·life of a cultivated ·
cricketer little .that . is sweeter than a summer
mornipg at Lord~t.';}~.-.mor-ning when the sky is .a
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blue awni,~1g bl--~f©.ut with soft wind and· the ,i ,
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trees a.t the Nur~ei;:y End make a delicate motion.
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"The Nursery End at Lord's'.',! The phrase sets
memory astir, for have we not read in days of old
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DAYS IN THE SUN·
in those evening papers our boyish eyes scanned
that." Richardson went on at the Nursery Endt
that" Ranjitsinhji·.glanced Noble ·to the rails, at
the Nurs~ry End " ? Because Max Beerbohm has
never written an essay called " Going to Lord's
on a July Morning" we have proof he has never
in his life walked down the St John's Wood Road
with a day of cricket in sunny weather before him.
But perhaps it is n9t given to the man who lives
only ro.uhd the corner from Lord's and can visit
it every day to feel its appeal as ke,enly as th~
man from the North. who not more than. three or
four times a year walks down the St John's Wood
Roa,d.·
mellow
Let the morning be quiet and and
there,seems in the air about the St John's Wood
Road, at least to one not . too familiar with the
pla_c·e, a sense of the dead old. days, causing a
melancholy which no doubt one ought t~. be
ashamed of. The mind is made by this something
in the St John's Wood air to pl~y with fancies of ·
Victorian greatness hanging about the spot ; of a
gleaming hansom·ca.b at the ~nt:rance and a blac~
bearded man, looking mounta.ineus in everyday
clothes, getting out while folk standing around mur.::
mur " ' W.G.' ! "; of .simple-faced men ·in wide,
uncreas.ed trousers proceeding along the pavement,
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