|
|
|
  |
| Sunday, 22 May 2005 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Willow music
by A. C. de Silva Cricket is a game that has many stories connected to it and can be told many times over, because they will interest the large following this game enjoys. Besides the game itself, there are many characters in the past who have made this game so very rich that the tales and incidents when they were participants will interest the cricketing public in whatever part of the world they reside. The 1930s which is considered the good old days of cricket in England and Australia have had many outstanding cricketers and England's Jack Hobbs was one of them. It is on record that when Hobbs batted he was like a conducter unfolding the delights of music. Referring to his innings for the players against the gentlemen at Lord's: Hobbs was in noble form. His cricket possesses the dignity of complete mastership. There is nothing in the game during his days as his batsmanship - so effortless, so full and so authoritative, so untroubled and so proportionate - absolutely classical in its mingling of strength and clear purposeful outlines. In a short while he showed all the dominant parts of batsmanship - drives, cuts and glances. This was symphonic cricket, cricket purpled with the man's long and majestic experience. Mention the name Don Bradman - and then it's all about the great heroic deeds with the bat that he waved with great authorities. But in the early days it has not been only his batting that attracted keen followers of the game. There was that day in July 1932 when Bradman, not satisfied with breaking batting records, turned out to be a demon bowler too. Playing for the Australian tourists, he outshone his teammates, Mailey Richardson Macabe and Kippax. First he made 94 in Australia's total of 303 for 6 wickets declared. And here's the most astonishing part of the story, he claimed six British Columbia successive wickets in an eight-ball over. Silver hundreds Back in England and here's a story of Maurice Leyland of Yorkshire. He was a cricketer with all kinds of numerous admirers. An old lady who used to live in Harrogate, and later switched to the South of England and gave Maurice as a keepsake, a silver cigarette box with all his centuries inscribed on it. She used to send him money to have new ones added to the list whenever he added a century to his record. Hit for six F. R. Brown, or Freddie Brown to be precise believed, as a batsman, that bowlers bowled only for batsmen to whack the deliveries healthily. He particularly relished slow bowlers' deliveries. Seeing a Freddie Brown innings Mitchell, the Derbyshire spin bowler, said the quickfooted, quick-eyed batsman, who adopts a bold policy, can be a terror to the slow bowler. Men like Frank Woolley, he said "make life very hard for fellows like me. They don't give the ball a chance to do its work, and if you are inclined to get downhearted when hit for six, then you will soon be knocked off your length". Still in England on that August day in 1932. a famous name in English cricket Herbert Sutcliffe when he made 86 against Northamptonshire, and became the first batsman to reach 2,000 runs that season. From 1922 to 1932, he had thus achieved the feat eleven times in-a-row. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
