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Favourite BITS of cricket writing
- Thread starter SJS
- Start date
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
I may not have had red 'hearts' coming out of my skull,@ Waqar
but I did love that guy when he was bowling at his peak.
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
A quqrter of a century ago, Bill O'Rielly wrote this. The words are prophetic but, of course, no one is listening.
I have seen the extraordinary and vigorous growth of the public entertainment known as Limited overs cricket, and have steadfastly refused to accept it as a serious substitute for the game which I have loved so much that I feel that I have some sort of proprietorial right to it. So lonmg as limited overs cricket is classed only as quick-fire public entertainment I am prepared to live alongside it, but I am appalled at the degenerating influence of the one day game on the game of cricket as a whole.
Firstly, because there is no premium on taking wickets, limited overs cricket is loaded against spin bowling, which is of itself unattractive, and what is worse, makes for unattractive batting. Batsmen will never learn to use their feet to bowling of this type, and will come to rely more and more on short armed clubbed strokes. The graceful off-side play of the Hammonds and the Greg Chappell's will disappear, and the game will come to resemble baseball.
It is only by encouraging spin bowling that footwork will be brought back into the game, and when I think that this new type of cricket is still played with the leg-before-wicket rule that has already gone a long way towards destroying the art of spin bowling, my bile rises to a level which is difficult for me to bear. Don't the administrators understand this? If not, how can they be so stupid? The least they could do is give spinners a fair chance in the one day game. That would be a golden opportunity to introduce a fair lbw rule, so that if a batsman is hit on the pad by a ball which would have gone on to hit the stumps, regardless of where it pitched. he is given out. Morally he is out. He should be given out. Limited overs cricket would be the perfect place to experiment with such a rule and it would have the enormous advantage of bringing spin bowling back into the new game on equal and fair terms.
I am convinced too that the excess of cricket, particularly limited overs cricket, played in England at the moment is the reason why the home of the game can no longer produce fast bowlers. The emphasis is on bowling tight, not on taking wickets, and with so much cricket being played any genuine tearaway fast bowler would burn himself out in no time. The West Indian pace battery may give the lie to this argument, but at present their nursery is much less intense - they arrive at the international scene fully formed, so to speak. wIf they start to take cricket too seriously in the West Indies, and overload the local game with coaches and too much cricket, my bet is that they will, before too long, run into the same problems.
One day cricket is said to have brought the crowds back into the game. My attitude to that has always been that the game is for the players, the people inside the fence, not those outside it. But if crowds are essential for the well being of the game, then my guess is that nothing will encourage them to watch the game more than classical cricket where both batsman and bowler are encouraged to play attacking cricket on equal terms. The biggest crowds I ever experienced in my playing days were in the 1936-37 series. That series was accompanied by very little controversy inside the fence, just glorious attacking cricket: the likes of Walter Hammond, Maurice Leyland, Gubby Allen and Hedley Verity for England and Don Bradman, Stan McCabe, Ernie McCormick, Fleetwood Smith and O'Reilly for us. It is interesting to note that the other series out here which consistently drew enormous crowds was in 1960-61 against Frank Worrell's West Indies, when the same brand of cricket was p[layed, perhaps for the last time. Even more interesting to me, that 1960-61 series was not dominated by fast bowling: Lance Gibbs and Richie Benaud played crucial roles in every nail-biting encounter.
I know how glorious the game can be. To me limited overs cricket is a travesty of the game, and I am certain that it is creating greater problems in the long term than it is solving in the short term.
Firstly, because there is no premium on taking wickets, limited overs cricket is loaded against spin bowling, which is of itself unattractive, and what is worse, makes for unattractive batting. Batsmen will never learn to use their feet to bowling of this type, and will come to rely more and more on short armed clubbed strokes. The graceful off-side play of the Hammonds and the Greg Chappell's will disappear, and the game will come to resemble baseball.
It is only by encouraging spin bowling that footwork will be brought back into the game, and when I think that this new type of cricket is still played with the leg-before-wicket rule that has already gone a long way towards destroying the art of spin bowling, my bile rises to a level which is difficult for me to bear. Don't the administrators understand this? If not, how can they be so stupid? The least they could do is give spinners a fair chance in the one day game. That would be a golden opportunity to introduce a fair lbw rule, so that if a batsman is hit on the pad by a ball which would have gone on to hit the stumps, regardless of where it pitched. he is given out. Morally he is out. He should be given out. Limited overs cricket would be the perfect place to experiment with such a rule and it would have the enormous advantage of bringing spin bowling back into the new game on equal and fair terms.
I am convinced too that the excess of cricket, particularly limited overs cricket, played in England at the moment is the reason why the home of the game can no longer produce fast bowlers. The emphasis is on bowling tight, not on taking wickets, and with so much cricket being played any genuine tearaway fast bowler would burn himself out in no time. The West Indian pace battery may give the lie to this argument, but at present their nursery is much less intense - they arrive at the international scene fully formed, so to speak. wIf they start to take cricket too seriously in the West Indies, and overload the local game with coaches and too much cricket, my bet is that they will, before too long, run into the same problems.
One day cricket is said to have brought the crowds back into the game. My attitude to that has always been that the game is for the players, the people inside the fence, not those outside it. But if crowds are essential for the well being of the game, then my guess is that nothing will encourage them to watch the game more than classical cricket where both batsman and bowler are encouraged to play attacking cricket on equal terms. The biggest crowds I ever experienced in my playing days were in the 1936-37 series. That series was accompanied by very little controversy inside the fence, just glorious attacking cricket: the likes of Walter Hammond, Maurice Leyland, Gubby Allen and Hedley Verity for England and Don Bradman, Stan McCabe, Ernie McCormick, Fleetwood Smith and O'Reilly for us. It is interesting to note that the other series out here which consistently drew enormous crowds was in 1960-61 against Frank Worrell's West Indies, when the same brand of cricket was p[layed, perhaps for the last time. Even more interesting to me, that 1960-61 series was not dominated by fast bowling: Lance Gibbs and Richie Benaud played crucial roles in every nail-biting encounter.
I know how glorious the game can be. To me limited overs cricket is a travesty of the game, and I am certain that it is creating greater problems in the long term than it is solving in the short term.
- Bill Orielly writing in 'Tiger' O'Reilly - 60 Years in Test Cricket
stumpski
International Captain
I agree with a lot of what 'Tiger' says there; but he does seem to be arguing in his third paragraph for a batsman to be given out lbw to a ball pitched outside leg stump, which surely few of us would approve of. Ashley Giles might well have taken 250 wickets in Tests if it were possible. But otherwise, the old boy is right on the money.
Thank you for your e-mail by the way - I shall respond when I have a chance to do so properly (have to go out soon).
Thank you for your e-mail by the way - I shall respond when I have a chance to do so properly (have to go out soon).
fredfertang
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
O'Reilly, whose writing was like his bowling, wrote that in 1985 when there was no leggie on the horizon to take over when Abdul Qadir retired - I see he lived on until 1995 - were his thoughts on Warne and Murali ever recorded?
O'Reilly died in 1992 before Warne reached double figures. This is what he wrote in 1982, a very prescient piece, at a time many were expecting spin to die.
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
A lovely little piece that never fails to bring joy to me.
Holiday In Hyde Park
H.V. morton
H.V. morton
THE FAMILY can not afford to snatch a few hectic days at Southend or at Margate, because railway fares alone would eat up a week's wages. So London must be the playground and give them their wages.
Mother packs a wicker basket with sandwiches, bread and cheese, and bottles of lemonade (and a supply of milk for Alfred, who has not yet joined the general competition to eat the parents out of house and home), and father, as if revealing a secret, produces a cricket bat and, most marvelous to behold, wickets.
When you have been accustomed to cricket with a cast-off coat as the target for your googlies, real wickets seem the last word in style and tone. The children, realising that these things are a remarkable phenomenon in a life which contains few such extravagences, crowd around, handle them reverently, and feel that it is going to be a wonderful holiday.
They arrive at Hyde Park early in the day to seek out a secluded spot. This is not simple, for too many others are at the same game. However, the sharp slope upward from the Serpentine towards the Marble Arch side of the park affords considerable boskiness. In fact, a Londoner of a Virginlian turn of mind could believe himself in a fit setting for a Georgic, a conviction helped out here and there by the city's equivalent of a shephard sporting with Amarylis in the shade. Through the ancient trees the Serpentine gleams like silver. On the road below pass horsemen and horse-women, giving to the ****ney just that pathetic assurance of humanity and - dare I say - civilisation whicvh is entirely lacking in the frightening solitude of real country.
Bill, Mrs Bill, and family establish Alfred in a place of safety on a pile of coats, from which he gazes blue eyed, his mouth deformed by an 'India-rubber' comforter, and his remarks rendered quite negligible. Then they hurl themselves into holiday with deliberate abandon. Maudie, all legs and flying hair, fields in slips, John bowls, Alice keeps wickets, Tom retires to an indefinite position in the aloof distance, father bowls, mother bats.
Mother is twenty-eight, and looks thirty-eight because, like half the women on earth, she is immolated on the altar of the next generation. If her beloved family could be chloroformed for a month and she allowed to rest in some quiet place she might look less worn out. However, today she is radiantly happy, for she has father and family together in an atmosphere of gaity. She has forgotten the man with the rent book, the gas-meter, the eternal problem of food and the thousand things which to her mean married life.
"Ready?" asks father. He bowls an underhand lob. She makes a slash at it, turns completely around, the ball lodges in her skirt and she begins frantically to score runs. They stump her! The field comes in, discussing MCC rules, to hold an inquest on her short life as a batsman!
"All right. Have another go. We won't count that." says father.
They start again, mother hits them all over Hyde Park, and looks like making a century. Suddenly there are cries of anguish from the coat dump. Alfred's mouth resembles the entrance to a scarlet cave, his eyes are closed in the sheer enthusiasm of his sorrow, tears catch each other up on his pink cheeks. Mother drops her bat at the call of her life's mission! She bends over Alfred and produces a bottle. His passion ends as suddenly as it began. The game of cricket proceeds.
Through a sunny afternoon the humble London family find ease and happiness in Hyde Park.
Mother packs a wicker basket with sandwiches, bread and cheese, and bottles of lemonade (and a supply of milk for Alfred, who has not yet joined the general competition to eat the parents out of house and home), and father, as if revealing a secret, produces a cricket bat and, most marvelous to behold, wickets.
When you have been accustomed to cricket with a cast-off coat as the target for your googlies, real wickets seem the last word in style and tone. The children, realising that these things are a remarkable phenomenon in a life which contains few such extravagences, crowd around, handle them reverently, and feel that it is going to be a wonderful holiday.
They arrive at Hyde Park early in the day to seek out a secluded spot. This is not simple, for too many others are at the same game. However, the sharp slope upward from the Serpentine towards the Marble Arch side of the park affords considerable boskiness. In fact, a Londoner of a Virginlian turn of mind could believe himself in a fit setting for a Georgic, a conviction helped out here and there by the city's equivalent of a shephard sporting with Amarylis in the shade. Through the ancient trees the Serpentine gleams like silver. On the road below pass horsemen and horse-women, giving to the ****ney just that pathetic assurance of humanity and - dare I say - civilisation whicvh is entirely lacking in the frightening solitude of real country.
Bill, Mrs Bill, and family establish Alfred in a place of safety on a pile of coats, from which he gazes blue eyed, his mouth deformed by an 'India-rubber' comforter, and his remarks rendered quite negligible. Then they hurl themselves into holiday with deliberate abandon. Maudie, all legs and flying hair, fields in slips, John bowls, Alice keeps wickets, Tom retires to an indefinite position in the aloof distance, father bowls, mother bats.
Mother is twenty-eight, and looks thirty-eight because, like half the women on earth, she is immolated on the altar of the next generation. If her beloved family could be chloroformed for a month and she allowed to rest in some quiet place she might look less worn out. However, today she is radiantly happy, for she has father and family together in an atmosphere of gaity. She has forgotten the man with the rent book, the gas-meter, the eternal problem of food and the thousand things which to her mean married life.
"Ready?" asks father. He bowls an underhand lob. She makes a slash at it, turns completely around, the ball lodges in her skirt and she begins frantically to score runs. They stump her! The field comes in, discussing MCC rules, to hold an inquest on her short life as a batsman!
"All right. Have another go. We won't count that." says father.
They start again, mother hits them all over Hyde Park, and looks like making a century. Suddenly there are cries of anguish from the coat dump. Alfred's mouth resembles the entrance to a scarlet cave, his eyes are closed in the sheer enthusiasm of his sorrow, tears catch each other up on his pink cheeks. Mother drops her bat at the call of her life's mission! She bends over Alfred and produces a bottle. His passion ends as suddenly as it began. The game of cricket proceeds.
Through a sunny afternoon the humble London family find ease and happiness in Hyde Park.
Source : The English Game by Gerald Brodgribb
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
Cricket - A Cult and a Philosophy
To some people cricket is a circus show upon which they may or may not find it worthwhile to spend sixpence; to others its a pleasant means of a livelihood; to others a physical fine art full of plot, interest and enlivened by difficulties; to others, in some sort, it is a cult and a philosophy, ..... and these last will never be understood by the profanum vulgus, nor by the merchant-minded, nor by the unphysically intellectual.
- C B Fry.
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
Leg Before ?? Of course not
George Washington, a truthful man,
Who never broke the law,
Lived in America, and so
Was never 'leg before.'
He never travelled in a train,
He never tried to fly,
He had a further drawback, too,
He could not tell a lie !
He never had those specious tales
With which to trouble you,
Which proved conclusively he was
Not L.B.W.
He did not say the umpire should
Be given five years hard,
Because the ball turned some four feet.
Or certainly a yard!
He did not swear he hit the ball
So hard he thought it four,
How could he, in such circumstance
Be out leg-before?
His hatchet and his truthfulness
Are something of a bore,
But nothing to the fellow who
Is never leg-before!
In cricket as spectators know,
There's one unwritten law,
Whichever way a batsman's out,
He's never leg before !
- F B Wilson
George Washington, a truthful man,
Who never broke the law,
Lived in America, and so
Was never 'leg before.'
He never travelled in a train,
He never tried to fly,
He had a further drawback, too,
He could not tell a lie !
He never had those specious tales
With which to trouble you,
Which proved conclusively he was
Not L.B.W.
He did not say the umpire should
Be given five years hard,
Because the ball turned some four feet.
Or certainly a yard!
He did not swear he hit the ball
So hard he thought it four,
How could he, in such circumstance
Be out leg-before?
His hatchet and his truthfulness
Are something of a bore,
But nothing to the fellow who
Is never leg-before!
In cricket as spectators know,
There's one unwritten law,
Whichever way a batsman's out,
He's never leg before !
- F B Wilson
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
There are over a hundred works of EV Lucas listed by Wikipedia but I have seen only two cricket books of his writings.
The following piece, though written a hundred years ago is amazingly relevant today. When cricket lovers the world over are wondering over the direction the game is taking, here is cricket's very own 'Nostradamus' prophesying such a day a hundred years in advance.
A fabulous piece of cricket writing.
Cricket in its true homes - cricket on the village green, cricket at school, cricket at college, cricket that we don't pay to see: no one seems to have any fault to find with that. But first class county cricket has a thousand vociferous censors or emendators, most of whom to me, seem to miss the point, for most of them want to make a new game, either by the wish that each match should be compressed heretically into brief time limits, or to the glorification of hitting to the exclusion of all other branches that are less popular but often of greater importance.
Should one be provoked to attempt a re-statement, I think it should rather run on the lines such as these; - Cricket is not a series of spectacular events, a display of sparkle and it never can be. Cricket is a stealthy and protracted and often very dogged and unexciting form of warfare, subject to sudden hazards and changes, and differing from any other form of warfare in this element of surprise; For the unforeseen is continually happening. Hence the historic phrase about its glorious uncertainty.
Those who clamour for big hits and quick scoring, forget this phrase altogether or they would buy their seats at Lord's only with a guarantee that a certain number of sixes were offered to them. I have no doubt that this will come: I have no doubt that a showman will, before long, rent a ground or a stadium and engage a team of sloggers to fill two hours, or even that he will arrange contests of tip and run. Let him. It will be good fun for the impatient; but it won't be cricket. It will be as like cricket as a music hall program is like a play by Shakespeare.
Big hitting has the same relation to cricket as wit to a parliamentary debate, or champagne to dinner. They are exhilerating when we find them, but just as legislation can go on without wit, and dinner can go on without champagne, so can the game of cricket go on without fireworks. The spectacle of a watchful and astute captain assisted by a bowler and nine fieldsmen trying to get a man out, should be as entertaining as one dashing hitter. It is the whole concerted attack and the determination of the resister that make cricket. Splendid, no doubt, when the resister finds the boundary again and again, but not less admirable, when doing his best, he merely succeeds in keeping his end up and either winning or preventing defeat.
Cricket is not big hitting or consistently bright batting, although big hitting and bright batting are part of cricket. Cricket is big hitting and bright batting plus no hitting and anxious batting, plus even dull batting, plus bowling, plus fielding, plus strategy, plus chance. That is the game: all those ingredients are essential.
Furthermore - and at the moment we are losing sight of this - a cricket match should be won or lost, so that in addition to those ingredients is the very important one of untiring, unrelenting, rivalry. This year, I regret to say, the points for first innings advantage, the insidious ideal of 1000 runs in May, have been allowed to blunt the edge of the fight, and there has not been, in the first class fixtures, the keen struggle that should never be absent from the game, and which gives it much of its fascination and its drama.
- E. V. Lucas writing in The Cricketer
- The Hambledon Men (1907) and
- Cricket All His Life (1950), a compilation of his cricket writings by Rupert Hart Davis
Being fortunate enough to possess both these books, I can say without any hesitations that Lucas is amongst the greatest of cricket writers. His books are evocative of the old world charrm of the game in England that one first discovered through the writings of Cardus.- Cricket All His Life (1950), a compilation of his cricket writings by Rupert Hart Davis
The following piece, though written a hundred years ago is amazingly relevant today. When cricket lovers the world over are wondering over the direction the game is taking, here is cricket's very own 'Nostradamus' prophesying such a day a hundred years in advance.
A fabulous piece of cricket writing.
A REMINDER
Cricket in its true homes - cricket on the village green, cricket at school, cricket at college, cricket that we don't pay to see: no one seems to have any fault to find with that. But first class county cricket has a thousand vociferous censors or emendators, most of whom to me, seem to miss the point, for most of them want to make a new game, either by the wish that each match should be compressed heretically into brief time limits, or to the glorification of hitting to the exclusion of all other branches that are less popular but often of greater importance.
Should one be provoked to attempt a re-statement, I think it should rather run on the lines such as these; - Cricket is not a series of spectacular events, a display of sparkle and it never can be. Cricket is a stealthy and protracted and often very dogged and unexciting form of warfare, subject to sudden hazards and changes, and differing from any other form of warfare in this element of surprise; For the unforeseen is continually happening. Hence the historic phrase about its glorious uncertainty.
Those who clamour for big hits and quick scoring, forget this phrase altogether or they would buy their seats at Lord's only with a guarantee that a certain number of sixes were offered to them. I have no doubt that this will come: I have no doubt that a showman will, before long, rent a ground or a stadium and engage a team of sloggers to fill two hours, or even that he will arrange contests of tip and run. Let him. It will be good fun for the impatient; but it won't be cricket. It will be as like cricket as a music hall program is like a play by Shakespeare.
Big hitting has the same relation to cricket as wit to a parliamentary debate, or champagne to dinner. They are exhilerating when we find them, but just as legislation can go on without wit, and dinner can go on without champagne, so can the game of cricket go on without fireworks. The spectacle of a watchful and astute captain assisted by a bowler and nine fieldsmen trying to get a man out, should be as entertaining as one dashing hitter. It is the whole concerted attack and the determination of the resister that make cricket. Splendid, no doubt, when the resister finds the boundary again and again, but not less admirable, when doing his best, he merely succeeds in keeping his end up and either winning or preventing defeat.
Cricket is not big hitting or consistently bright batting, although big hitting and bright batting are part of cricket. Cricket is big hitting and bright batting plus no hitting and anxious batting, plus even dull batting, plus bowling, plus fielding, plus strategy, plus chance. That is the game: all those ingredients are essential.
Furthermore - and at the moment we are losing sight of this - a cricket match should be won or lost, so that in addition to those ingredients is the very important one of untiring, unrelenting, rivalry. This year, I regret to say, the points for first innings advantage, the insidious ideal of 1000 runs in May, have been allowed to blunt the edge of the fight, and there has not been, in the first class fixtures, the keen struggle that should never be absent from the game, and which gives it much of its fascination and its drama.
- E. V. Lucas writing in The Cricketer
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SJS
Hall of Fame Member
Normally, while reading, one often comes across passages that one wants to underline or highlight because they are so perfectly worded to express exactly what the writer wants to say. These are what one sees used as quotes. In the preceding essay of Lucas, it was almost as if the entire article was one massive quote. Just sample this.
After the first paragraph, thats virtually, the entire essay.
- Cricket is not a series of spectacular events, a display of sparkle and it never can be. Cricket is a stealthy and protracted and often very dogged and unexciting form of warfare, subject to sudden hazards and changes, and differing from any other form of warfare in this element of surprise; For the unforeseen is continually happening. Hence the historic phrase about its glorious uncertainty.
- Big hitting has the same relation to cricket as wit to a parliamentary debate, or champagne to dinner. They are exhilerating when we find them, but just as legislation can go on without wit, and dinner can go on without champagne, so can the game of cricket go on without fireworks.
- I have no doubt that a showman will, before long, rent a ground or a stadium and engage a team of sloggers to fill two hours, or even that he will arrange contests of tip and run. Let him. It will be good fun for the impatient; but it won't be cricket. It will be as like cricket as a music hall program is like a play by Shakespeare.
- Cricket is not big hitting or consistently bright batting, although big hitting and bright batting are part of cricket. Cricket is big hitting and bright batting plus no hitting and anxious batting, plus even dull batting, plus bowling, plus fielding, plus strategy, plus chance. That is the game: all those ingredients are essential.
- The spectacle of a watchful and astute captain assisted by a bowler and nine fieldsmen trying to get a man out, should be as entertaining as one dashing hitter. It is the whole concerted attack and the determination of the resister that make cricket. Splendid, no doubt, when the resister finds the boundary again and again, but not less admirable, when doing his best, he merely succeeds in keeping his end up and either winning or preventing defeat.
- a cricket match should be won or lost, so that in addition to those ingredients is the very important one of untiring, unrelenting, rivalry. ..... in the first class fixtures, the keen struggle that should never be absent from the game, and which gives it much of its fascination and its drama.
- Big hitting has the same relation to cricket as wit to a parliamentary debate, or champagne to dinner. They are exhilerating when we find them, but just as legislation can go on without wit, and dinner can go on without champagne, so can the game of cricket go on without fireworks.
- I have no doubt that a showman will, before long, rent a ground or a stadium and engage a team of sloggers to fill two hours, or even that he will arrange contests of tip and run. Let him. It will be good fun for the impatient; but it won't be cricket. It will be as like cricket as a music hall program is like a play by Shakespeare.
- Cricket is not big hitting or consistently bright batting, although big hitting and bright batting are part of cricket. Cricket is big hitting and bright batting plus no hitting and anxious batting, plus even dull batting, plus bowling, plus fielding, plus strategy, plus chance. That is the game: all those ingredients are essential.
- The spectacle of a watchful and astute captain assisted by a bowler and nine fieldsmen trying to get a man out, should be as entertaining as one dashing hitter. It is the whole concerted attack and the determination of the resister that make cricket. Splendid, no doubt, when the resister finds the boundary again and again, but not less admirable, when doing his best, he merely succeeds in keeping his end up and either winning or preventing defeat.
- a cricket match should be won or lost, so that in addition to those ingredients is the very important one of untiring, unrelenting, rivalry. ..... in the first class fixtures, the keen struggle that should never be absent from the game, and which gives it much of its fascination and its drama.
After the first paragraph, thats virtually, the entire essay.
Perm
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
honestbharani
Whatever it takes!!!
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
swaranjs@gmailthanks a lot.. gimme ur mail id or something.. I will mail you my address.
honestbharani
Whatever it takes!!!
seriously... juz so hard to believe that ppl who entertained us are actually having to beg right now.....
That piece brought tears to my eyes, what a tragic tale.
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
AA Thomson, my second most favourite cricket writer (after Cardus) writes a lovely piece in the prologue to his beautiful book Cricket : The Golden Ages.
Here is a small bit of it.
Here is a small bit of it.
The Golden Age ?
A A Thomson
A A Thomson
…the phrase ‘Golden Age’ is in itself of doubtful import. It may mean anything or nothing. An age is a vague division of time. Golden ages, a wise historian has said, are not all pure gold and, in any event, do not last long. Few people would agree to the exact definition of the period of time loosely called a golden age. More often than not, it represents a rosy, romantic vision of the time, past or future, which wafts us away from the oppressive realities of the present; a period
Relativity . . . . That’s the thing. And yet there is a sense in which these matters are not at all relative. There have been periods in our rough island story, and will be again, please heaven, when the statesmen, the artists, the craftsmen or the cricketers are (and are manifestly seen to be) of higher quality than those of other, less fortunate times.
When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green,
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen.
In one sense, a golden age is everybody’s yesterday. Its quality lies in the golden mist that tints the gaze of the beholder. It is not something we live in, but something we sometimes look forward to, or, more often, look back on. This is inescapable. Even the present age, whose disadvantages crowd in upon us daily, will in time come to be wistfully remembered. Its not the happiest time of anybody’s life, but . . . . it will have been. There exists someone, young today, who many years hence will shake a querulous quavering finger at his grandson and say: ‘You may not believe it, but I remember a time when cigarettes were four-and-a-penny for twenty.’ He may even add (to the accompaniment of juvenile derision): ‘I once saw Trevor Bailey in holiday mood at Clacton-on-Sea and he scored twenty runs in an hour, without a word of exaggeration.’ He would be as scornful as his unborn descendents if you told him (now) in 1961 that he had never really had it so good, but by the year 2001, the universal malady of nostalgia would have overtaken him.And all the trees are green,
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen.
Relativity . . . . That’s the thing. And yet there is a sense in which these matters are not at all relative. There have been periods in our rough island story, and will be again, please heaven, when the statesmen, the artists, the craftsmen or the cricketers are (and are manifestly seen to be) of higher quality than those of other, less fortunate times.
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harsh.ag
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Alan Butcher has a nice piece on facing fast bowling
Alan Butcher: What Sylvester Clarke taught me | Cricket | ESPN Cricinfo
Sylvester Clarke special appearance for fred.
Alan Butcher: What Sylvester Clarke taught me | Cricket | ESPN Cricinfo
Sylvester Clarke special appearance for fred.
