The Spirit of Test Cricket
From George Orwell's "Raffles and Miss Blandish" (1944)
Cricket is not in reality a very popular game in England -- it is nowhere near so popular as football, for instance-- but it gives expression to a well-marked trait in the English character, the tendency to value "form" or "style" more highly than success. In the eyes of any true cricket-lover it is possible for an innings of ten runs to be "better" than an innings of a hundred runs: cricket is also one of the very few games in which the amateur can excel the professional. It is a game full of forlorn hopes and sudden dramatic changes of fortune, and its rules are so ill-defined that their interpretation is partly an ethical business. When Larwood, for instance, practiced body line bowling in Australia he was not actually breaking any rule: he was merely doing something that was "not cricket." Since cricket takes up a lot of time and is rather an expensive game to play, it is predominantly an upper-class game, but for the whole nation is it bound up with such concepts as "good form," "playing the game," etc., and it has declined in popularity just as the tradition of "don't hit a man when he's down" has declined. It is not a twentieth-century game, and nearly all modern-minded people dislike it. The Nazis, for instance, were at pains to discourage cricket, which had gained a certain footing in Germany before and after the last war.
(Thanks to SH for bringing this to my attention)
| Posted by TA on Thu 16 Oct |  5 comments |
Good post TA/SH/GO.
68 years on, I don't disagree with anything the quote contains but I do however (speaking as an ex-Pom) rather think that those precise points are exactly what draw most of us to the game these days.
Test cricket is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most self-indulgent of pastimes - whether for the player or spectator. I mean, what other sport can you play for 5 days and still end up in a draw??? If you don't like it, you clearly don't understand it as I always say...
Believe it or not and in these days of the swash-buckling 38-ball 50s and the Twanky-Twanky format, I as a kid, found the stoic efforts of Illingworth, Close, Steele and Boycott mesmerising. The enemy were the likes of a youthful Andy Roberts, Collis King and Michael Holding, Lillee and then Thommo. It was like a total war of attrition.
Boycs would be playing for a draw from the outset unless they maimed him or he made his own mistake (say what you like about Boycott, he's still one of the most amazing batsman of all time). Erstwhile, Holding and Co. would be hammering down impossible ball after ball. When they got tired away went the batsmen and on came Sobers, Underwood or Bedi to take advantage after the exhausted pace bowlers.
Great games of cricketing chess in those times but for my money there's little difference now in essence.
Today, we are no more gagging to see IVA Richards smash a ton in boundaries as we are to see Tendulkar or Pietersen fail with the bat. We are no more gagging to see Brett Lee hit 161kmh than we were to see Greg Chappell get his 8th duck.
My point is this: the most pure form of our game is an exquisite thing;
Are they going to collapse?
Will they pile on the runs?
Will he beat his average?
Did they declare too early?
Should they play the nightwatchman?
Did the umpire make a monumental balls-up?
Does Hawk-eye reckon it's out?
Test cricket... the ultimate sport!
Posted by virtualgaz on 2008-10-16 19:54:24
68 years on, I don't disagree with anything the quote contains but I do however (speaking as an ex-Pom) rather think that those precise points are exactly what draw most of us to the game these days.
Test cricket is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most self-indulgent of pastimes - whether for the player or spectator. I mean, what other sport can you play for 5 days and still end up in a draw??? If you don't like it, you clearly don't understand it as I always say...
Believe it or not and in these days of the swash-buckling 38-ball 50s and the Twanky-Twanky format, I as a kid, found the stoic efforts of Illingworth, Close, Steele and Boycott mesmerising. The enemy were the likes of a youthful Andy Roberts, Collis King and Michael Holding, Lillee and then Thommo. It was like a total war of attrition.
Boycs would be playing for a draw from the outset unless they maimed him or he made his own mistake (say what you like about Boycott, he's still one of the most amazing batsman of all time). Erstwhile, Holding and Co. would be hammering down impossible ball after ball. When they got tired away went the batsmen and on came Sobers, Underwood or Bedi to take advantage after the exhausted pace bowlers.
Great games of cricketing chess in those times but for my money there's little difference now in essence.
Today, we are no more gagging to see IVA Richards smash a ton in boundaries as we are to see Tendulkar or Pietersen fail with the bat. We are no more gagging to see Brett Lee hit 161kmh than we were to see Greg Chappell get his 8th duck.
My point is this: the most pure form of our game is an exquisite thing;
Are they going to collapse?
Will they pile on the runs?
Will he beat his average?
Did they declare too early?
Should they play the nightwatchman?
Did the umpire make a monumental balls-up?
Does Hawk-eye reckon it's out?
Test cricket... the ultimate sport!
Posted by virtualgaz on 2008-10-16 19:54:24
64yrs on I mean!
Posted by virtualgaz on 2008-10-16 20:05:58
Posted by virtualgaz on 2008-10-16 20:05:58
I'm with you virtualgaz.
Posted by TA on 2008-10-17 11:54:30
Posted by TA on 2008-10-17 11:54:30
No preview of 2nd Test, no topic about 2nd Test. Guys, wakey wakey
Posted by ssukhdial on 2008-10-17 16:58:51
Posted by ssukhdial on 2008-10-17 16:58:51
The Nazis discouraged cricket? The bastards!
Posted by JC on 2008-10-17 18:20:36
Posted by JC on 2008-10-17 18:20:36
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