With a Bow From Yorkshire
For rn gland and Yorkshire. By Her bert Sutcliffe. (Arnold. 5s.) Reviewed by "ROMANY"
I VEI-1 since the war Herbert Sutcliffe
4,4
has been the gin in the cocktail of England's cricket, the stuff that. matters, the liasis, the foundation. Sutcliffe's book is like Sutcliffe's batting, sombre stuff with a kick in it:
real rrirket. 111151 lulu p 01101 1 literary effervescence in the last year or two.
Crieket might grue dull if crieketers were all Sutetiffest it would stop altoge.ther if there were no Stitcliffes. The Hammonds and Lii Hobleses,, the liendrens and the Woolleys simply the mysterious individuality that makes one cocktail different from another:: Ihev are always doing something; often it is exasperating, more often It is exhilarating. too often it is disappointing; they sparkle and they fizz and then they fall flat.
Sutcliffe is different; there is no nonsense about Herbert Ile is not the batsman you go to see. he is the batsman you thank God for when you have Si,en the others. Ile is part of a minty where 1-7r-6-1;1,d is a joh rd work, ulit;re ever cricketer is a er:irtsnia.n who loves his (Taft, where a batsman's job is to make runs, not pictures.
LET THE RUNS COME
Other batsmen raise a bowler's hopes to dash them at the last minute, Hobbs with a late glance, Hendren with an Imptident !loot, Itat1111101111 when ins slashes them through the covers and Woonciy when lie leans against the ball and then loses 41! intrTest until it is collected from the next younty.
Siibhi flu ii not I k that; he is a heartbreaker to bowlers, his bat is always twice as wide as it has any right to 1:•e ;eel grows visthly wider as the bowler nears his crease. lie is England's greatest test bets.ineei, because be is England's best exponent. of the "slay there and the runs will creme" gospel. That done not mean that Suteli ffe does not ,score fast: often he floes, bill he is !lever in a hurry. Ile makes good bowlers, in .exasperation, try him with it bad hall and then hangs it liii SIN jliSt. to learn them.' /le seeres a century. then starts again: lie often wants to have a u dip" and nearly always thinks better or it.
556 FOR 1
With his glorious partner Percy Holmes be inalle t1at wonderful record hist-wicket stand at Leytort. They wanted 655. They got them; then Sutelirre "fell" and had hes "dip" and was out. Then the score-board staggered back to OII. It. till e:ame right in the end, but i nred any lingering tendency 10 imrseturtaity.
For Eiterand and, 1' orksh 17 is iikn its iwthor, there is HO TIMISeT154, about it. Sutcliffe knows; what he wants to say and says it. Cricket is his job and he. at once, its student and professor. His business is io master it, riot totuould to his own capa.ctiy.
LEG-THEORY
Fast kg-theory is part of the game altd Sutcliffe meets it as a problem, not ifa men :ice. He is no more afraid at %\ riling about it than he is of facing it:. Ills few straigl 0 rwa rd p urag, rap hs are a belated lossott to the eon-miner) of the and the Board of Control; they should make all who would fit this game to sait their age ur their infirmity bow their beads iti shame : ". , if a vote were taken on the matter (fast leg-theory) there would be an emphatic
majority against it . . but I have en idea. that Ynrkshire's voting would l'e definitely in favour of IT . for many years now the Yonkshire
(Ctott4Aucc4 rikipoi, at_ nom column!). coach has specialised at the nets in teaching the hook stroke." "Since 19e9 Ibis type of bowhing has bpi 11 employe4:1 in most cif Iforksbire's matches with. Notts , what, is more, no player has been petinitted to back away or show the slightest sign Of nervousness ithout hotog severely criticized on las return 1.o the dressingroom." Daring those yeers Yorkshire bite supplied the backbone and half the members of every representative England side and won the county championehip when and how it liked.
"DOPED" WICKETS
Sutcliffe is esscntially a modern cricketer; his career is all post-war and there has been no post-wax eriCket without him. One of the greatest or all England's batsmen, he is probably the greatest of her defensive batsmen; yet his sympathies are with the bowlers on =4= -wiekae• -,111101A).44,114es_ice wielsets were not "doped" there would be no need to taker with the rules, and his olunion is authoritative.
Ha writes Of 'Yorkshire cricket, n■f. England crielou, of (-Jacket through the empire Lind of cricketers evN'y'where, and writes a ways ut a. thing of whicit ne is part eild which is part of 311111, lie tells ut -rho greatness of Larwood, of the genius if Jardine, but "Fender i6 the best captain I have known," Herbert Sutcliffe belongs to England but be is Yorkshire: ho would not ash for higher praise than that.
Too many books about cricket have been published over the names of too many cricketers. For _England and Yorkshire is different; it is not only a fine hook but it is actually and auleii ticaily by a tine cricketer, by One who is good enough and young enough to live to write another. Please God his courage will not fail hint when