In the course of an interview at Lord’s yesterday afternoon (April
2nd) Mr. F. E. Lacey, the M.C.C. Secretary, said (the _Star_ states)
in response to an inquiry regarding the reason that the M.C.C.
eleven should have been so unaccountably beaten in four of the five
Test matches: “Not unaccountable at all. It is a case in which the
better side has won.
“There is little doubt that the South Africans have improved
wonderfully, but certainly M.C.C. should have done better.
“I believe the chief cause of our defeat has been poor fielding.
Then again, such really great batsmen as P. F. Warner and Hayes have
not done themselves justice.
“A great many judges of the game attribute the apparent failure of
our team to the fact that our men are playing on matting, but I can
scarcely agree with them. I have practised a lot on matting wickets,
and, judging from my own experience, it should hold no terrors for a
really good batsman.
“I can only attribute the defeat of our eleven to inferior play. The
fielding has been poor, the bowling only moderate, and the batting,
with one or two exceptions, second-rate.
“Of course, it is very difficult to judge when one is sitting in the
pavilion at Lord’s and the games are being played in South Africa,
so perhaps I may be wrong.
“I am very pleased with the success of Crawford, who is, in my
opinion, the finest all-round man on the side.
“It was never intended to send a representative eleven of England,
but I thought we had chosen a side quite worthy of upholding the
cricket honour of the country. Apparently we were wrong.
“Our defeat cannot do any harm; in fact, it may lead to a lot of
good, and if the South Africans visit us in 1907 they should command
a great amount of respect from all the first-class counties, as,
judging by the improvement in their play, they will give us some
good games, and may even be a hard nut to crack for a representative
English team.”
These quotations are taken from the columns of the _Sportsman_, April
3rd, 1906, and to them it is desired most earnestly to invite the
attention of those patriots who wish to see English cricket maintain its
supremacy. Let one regard for the moment these two gentlemen
individually as Mr. F. E. Lacey, Secretary of the Marylebone Club, Prime
Minister of Cricket, and Mr. P. F. Warner, captain of English teams sent
to play against the Colonies, Colonial Secretary of the Marylebone Club,
which up to the present time has, without any Opposition, assumed and
carried on the Government of Cricket.
The position in which they find themselves at the time of making these
disclosures to the Press is as follows:—
For some years past, since 1888, the cricket associations of South
Africa have from time to time invited English cricketers to visit South
Africa in order to assist in the development of the game in that
country. The team under Mr. Warner’s captaincy is the fifth that has
visited South Africa, the preceding ones having been under the private
management of, 1888–9, Major Wharton; 1891–2, Mr. W. W. Read; 1895–6,
and again in 1898–9, Lord Hawke; and now, 1905–6, under the management
of the Marylebone Club, with Mr. P. F. Warner as captain.
Major Wharton’s team was in no sense a powerful one, and included some
amateurs of obscure cricket origin; and they lost four matches in the
course of their travels. Mr. Read’s team was a strong one, and lost no
matches. Lord Hawke lost two matches on his first visit to Africa, but,
profiting by this experience, returned in 1899 with an unbeaten record.
An opportunity was afforded to South African cricketers of trying their
skill against English cricketers in the summer of 1904, when a team of
South Africans came to England to play a comprehensive programme, which
included twenty-two first-class matches, against the Counties,
’Varsities, M.C.C., and so on, with a special match, by request, against
England at Lord’s. Our visitors were modest, and without suggesting a
series of so-called Test matches, asked as a favour that upon one
occasion, and that at Lord’s, the headquarters of cricket, they might be
allowed to meet the full strength of England in order that they might
learn an important lesson in the game of cricket. This match was played
in the middle of July, and the Africans brought their best eleven to
Lord’s, and gained a decisive victory by 189 runs. But they were unable
to exult in their triumph, for the management of the Marylebone Club
took so little pride in the team they had selected to represent England
that the match was chronicled as “South Africans _v._ an English
Eleven,” and all cricketers know that the words, “An English Eleven,”
applied to a team condemn the team in one’s mind before one has read the
names. So little enough credit was given to the Africans for winning the
one match they had arranged against England at Lord’s; although anyone
who, in common with the writer, watched carefully the whole course of
the match from start to finish, must have realised that as they played
then our visitors might on their day have beaten the pick of England.
The result of that tour worked out: matches played 22, won 10, lost 2,
drawn 9, tied 1. The first match they lost was the second of their tour,
at Worcester, and of this game “Wisden’s Almanack” says: “The South
Africans had all the worst of the luck, as, after holding their own on
the first day, they had on the second to bat on a ruined pitch.”
So there was not much disgrace about this defeat. The other match lost
was against Kent at Canterbury, where the home team, for some reason or
another, always show to advantage. Kent batted first, and we read that:
“Helped by the condition of the wicket, which had never been perfect,
Blythe was very difficult at the finish.” And so the Africans lost by
104 runs. To an unbiassed observer it would seem that if upon the two
occasions when they suffered defeat the Africans had happened to have
won the toss, they might well have added a couple of wins to their
record instead of losses.
These three matches—namely, the two first-class games lost by the
Africans in 1904 and the Test match won by them at Lord’s—have been
dwelt upon at some length in order to remind readers that the
performances of that team were the performances of fine cricketers, and
any intelligent student of the game who saw Mr. Mitchell’s men in the
field must have realised that it was no fool’s job to find a team to
beat them.
Now let us see what happens afterwards. Affairs settle down after the
war in South Africa, and the time arrives when the Colonies are prepared
to try their strength against the mother country.
South African cricketers are anxious to receive a visit from an English
team, to treat all the members as their guests, and to pay the salaries
of the professionals. In a spirit of the most confident loyalty, African
cricket places herself in the hands of the Marylebone Club.
Africa is to pay the piper, the Marylebone Club is to call the tune. The
tune has been played to its dismal end, and of the five Test matches
four have resulted disastrously for _soi-disant_ England, the one win
for the M.C.C. team being by a narrow enough margin.
Without committing oneself to any criticism of the composition of the
team which was sent under the auspices of the Marylebone Club to Africa
to render an account of English cricket, it may be sufficient for
present purposes to suggest that if that team had been advertised to
play at one of the gate-money carnivals of cricket at Blackpool or
Bournemouth, and labelled according to custom “An Eleven of England,”
there would probably have been no unseemly rush of trippers hustling for
a shilling seat to watch their performances. Yet, according to this
contention, what Blackpool would not afford in the way of extravagance,
South Africa had to endure to the end.
An endeavour has been made to be very moderate in the premises, and now
it is time to turn to the remarks made respectively by Mr. Warner, whom
we have styled Chief Secretary for the Colonies, and Mr. Lacey, the
Prime Minister of Cricket.
In the hour of disastrous rout and defeat they have been interviewed
each “on his own,” separated from one another by thousands of miles. Let
us see what they say.
Mr. Warner says “the Africans were undoubtedly the superior side,
especially on their own wickets. It was a good thing they had won the
Test matches, as it had given a fillip to the game in South Africa.”
So Mr. Warner says it is a good thing that the side styled “England” has
lost the matches styled Test matches, for that will give a fillip to
cricket in South Africa. One wonders if it will!
It might have seemed obvious that South African cricket “filliped”
itself when its representatives swept the field in 1904, and one must
bear in mind that the Australians—who, at all events, can always be
depended upon to send their best—have met with more than one reverse
when they have taken on a South African team. One might ask a good
sportsman like Mr. Warner whether it is likely to give a fillip to a
good shot to have to give the _coup de grace_ to a wounded hare or to go
through the dull routine of killing a low-flying pheasant? Or, perhaps,
to get back to his freehold, the popping-crease, to ask him would he
prefer to score 128 runs against Africa or against XVIII. of Middleburg.
Mr. Warner is the most courteous of guests and opponents, and can be
depended upon to say the right thing upon all occasions, but somewhere
at the back of his head one suspects that there lurks the polished idea
that it would have been better for African cricket, better for English
cricket, and especially better for himself, if he had been enabled to be
in the company of the best of English cricketers in this African
campaign, and to have firmly asserted the supremacy of the Old Country
at our national game.
One or two of our general officers suffered defeat in South Africa a few
years ago, but we never heard of any of them exulting in the idea that
it was a “good thing, as it had given a fillip to fighting in South
Africa.” And we may be sure that Mr. Warner, over this unfortunate tour
in Africa, has been throughout as keen as any general officer. But he
had not got the men!
Now, what is to be said of “Mr. Lacey’s opinion,” as reported in the
_Star_ newspaper, when he consented to be interviewed upon the
“unaccountable defeat of the M.C.C. team in four Test matches out of
five.” The Secretary of the Marylebone Club is stated to have said, “Not
unaccountable at all. It is a case in which the better side has won.”
Later on Mr. Lacey is reported as saying: “It was never intended to send
a representative eleven of England, but I thought we had chosen a side
quite worthy of upholding the cricket honour of the country. Apparently
we were wrong.”
Now here is an important statement. Mr. Lacey seems to imply that he
could have sent a more powerful team to South Africa if he or the
management of the Club had been able to realise that the Africans, whom
they had seen winning at Lord’s in 1904 against their own Eleven of
England, were an extremely good side of cricketers.
According to the _Star_, Mr. Lacey has now no good word for the side of
which he says, “I thought we had chosen a side quite worthy of upholding
the cricket honour of the country.” He says: “I can only attribute the
defeat of our eleven to inferior play. The fielding has been poor, the
bowling only moderate, and the batting, with one or two exceptions,
second-rate.”
“I believe the chief cause of our defeat has been poor fielding. Then
again, such really great batsmen as P. F. Warner and Hayes have not done
themselves justice.” Further, he says, “A great many judges of the game
attribute the apparent failure of our team to the fact that our men are
playing on matting, but I can scarcely agree with them. I have practised
a lot on matting wickets, and judging from my own experience, it should
hold no terrors for a really good batsman.”
The great want of the team appears to have been a really good batsman,
and it seems a thousand pities from the point of view of the cricketing
public that Mr. Lacey did not personally conduct this team.
But “All’s well that ends well,” and the final paragraph of the opinion
of Mr. Lacey upon South African cricket states that:—
“Our defeat cannot do any harm; in fact, it may lead to a lot of good,
and if the South Africans visit us in 1907, they should command a great
amount of respect from all the first-class counties” (not yet, even, is
the Marylebone Club pledged to extend any more respect to South Africa
than was the case in 1904), “as judging by the improvement in their
play, the South Africans will give us some good games, and may even be a
hard nut to crack for a representative English team.”
Yes! they probably will be all that Mr. Lacey predicts, because, unless
we are mistaken, the South African team so long ago as 1904 came up to
that form, and it would have been as well if Mr. Lacey and those who
assist him in the management of the Marylebone Club had realised this
obvious fact a few months ago, before they organised this Majuba of
cricket which has caused so much disappointment to cricketers in the two
hemispheres.
Mr. Lacey and Mr. Warner are agreed that “the better side has won.”
Cricketers are almost entitled, respectfully, to ask upon this point
whether a better team could have been sent by the M.C.C. than this team
which Mr. Lacey now runs down. And if the answer to this be in the
affirmative, then the next question is, why was not a better team sent
to represent England?
The Africans asked to meet the strength of England, and they have
handsomely beaten the team put into the field against them. They have
performed their part of the bargain, and it seems almost ungenerous of
the Secretary of the Marylebone Club to assume this air of patronage and
to talk of the South African team as if they were a lot of schoolboys
undergoing an Easter course of coaching on the matting practice wickets
at Lord’s.
A result of this unfortunate business is that the Africans are already
knocking at the gate again, and we are informed that immediately at the
conclusion of the tour a cable was despatched asking that a South
African team should be received in England in 1907 on the same lines as
an Australian team, which appears to signify a programme including five
test matches, which may mean, according to Mr. Lacey, five hard nuts “to
crack for a representative English team.” But why not have sent the
nut-crackers to South Africa first?