Taken from the New Statesman archive, 16 August 1930.
This appeared at a dramatic moment for English cricket, the eve of the fifth Test against Australia, in which Don Bradman’s prodigious batting clinched the series for the tourists. Sidney Barrington Gates (1893-1973), a distinguished scientist, wrote occasionally for the New Statesman. - Brian Cathcart
I wonder if the gentlemen who spend their summer scribbling in the privileged seats of various cricket grounds know how potently they affect the lives of those ex-players and spectators whose secret passion they feed. It is years since I saw a Test match, or indeed, any class of cricket except that belted fun which I glimpse occasionally from the edge of Badger's Green. And yet the news of bat and ball comes as fresh and thrillingly to me now as when Fry's average was the most important thing in the world. It is the day's purest and most certain joy to open the morning paper and learn, as I always do, what has been happening at Lord's. At this solemn moment it is Isabel's habit to give a atone to the family's interest in affairs by learning on another sheet what has been happening in India. Then, after a blissful pause, Isabel tells me about India and I do not tell Isabel about Lord's. This lack of reciprocity is necessary because Isabel is unable to understand the meaning of cricket. When the evening fly-sheet is black with "England's Disaster" her thoughts fly unaccountably to the State; Bradman is not more than any other name to her; and she has been heard to say that cricket fields would be delightful places if only men would not so idiotically rush about on them. There is nothing for it but to leave her with her sad opinion that she is one of the few sane people left in mad summertime.
The other morning, however, something terrible happened. There must have been a shortage in Imperial and Foreign Intelligence, or perhaps no one in the Conservative party had been exceptionally abusive. At any rate, Isabel looked over my shoulder while I was still far from the bottom of my second column. Into my world of white figures vigorously patterned on the green I felt the obtrusion of a roving contemptuous eye. A voice began to read aloud:
"Tomkins, abandoning his short legs, packed his slips and attacked the off stump. This had an immediate effect, for Johnson, who had been driving and hooking with perfect ease, now omitted to get his right leg across. He began to nibble at the ones that were just short of a length, and was soon taken beautifully high up in the gully."
I had just read that passage with great approval. The man who wrote it was, in my opinion, a cricketer and a writer. There he sat – in his faded flannel suit, with his leathery neck, his hat tilted over his eyes and his eyes screwed up against the glare – and he assessed Tomkins v. Johnson with a perfect understanding. He knew every move in that duel, and before Johnson had got back into the pavilion he had written out for me on his pad, with authority, economy and excellent judgement, just what had happened, and why. Communication could do no more. But something in the quality of Isabel's voice warned me that all was not well. She looked at me. She tittered, she giggled, she yelled with delighted laughter. "Poor Tomkins," she gasped, "but why couldn't he leave his stumps alone when he had got rid of his short legs? It must have been painful." I suppressed my shocked feelings and spent five minutes in explaining to Isabel, with the aid of a geometrical diagram, what that passage conveyed to me. "Well," she said, "if he meant that why on earth couldn't he have said it in straight English?" It was useless to argue that the very streightness of the English was our bone of contention. Isabel was in full cry. She proceeded to read the whole of the article to me. I admitted, even while I pondered her revelation in a pained silence, that she had accomplished a superb piece of literary criticism. She discovered adventures as disconcerting as the tragedy of Tomkins's amputated legs in almost every sentence. Moving happily among the creases and the long hops, the silly points and the deep fields, she transformed a terse narrative of stern events into a farrago of glorious nonsense. If the test of good writing is that it should convey a unique meaning to any intelligent person conversant with the language in which it is written, then Isabel had severely compromised the writer's reputation. If he was a serious artist to me and a clown to her,was he in truth anything at all worth mentioning? I could not even plead that Isabel was making hay out of a foreign language. This, she pointed out, was her language. She stuck at "googlie" and "yorker"; apart from that she understood every word she read. When she announced that Richards knocked Poynter off his length by driving him repeatedly through the covers, she gave a wild and dazzling point to her announcement by insisting on the ordinary meanings of those very ordinary words. How dull it would have been for her (and for me) if cricket terminology had made her remark "Richards punked Poynter off his quirt by clomping him repeatedly through the cusks."
The argument simmered down to the nature and uses of technical terms. It is clearly impossible to satisfy Isabel's desire to be told at length what happens. A shorthand is necessary to describe important and complicated operations like the playing of cricket. And how admirably have the generations of cricketers solved this problem! The men who had to name the fielders' positions did not run to Greek or Latin for them, nor did they manufacture outlandish permutations of letters. Knowing no better, they lifted words from common parlance which satisfied their earthy senese of propriety. In this they showed a genius for economy. Is there a better title than "square leg" for him who has the maximum view of the batsman's rump? Could the word "over" be more charmingly applied that to an event which is preceded and followed by the manoeuvre of crossing the field? An examination of the cricketing vocabulary brings a curious sense of dynamic fitness. The process of selection may be obscure, the quality of expressiveness may elude analysis, but it is indisputable that the cricketer had somehow got hold of the right words. Nor can this be mainly ascribed to the mellowing hand of time. "Late cut", no doubt, has the sanctity of the antique, but it must have been nearly as right the first time it was used as it is now.
Just as there is a vital satisfaction in making a little money go a long way, so the genius of a language is continually enriched by finding new jobs for old words, and the vocabulary of our ancient games are perfect examples of this adaptability. It takes a long time for an imported or newly-minted word to settle down to strange surroundings, but one which is merely adapted to a new meaning is like a man who comes to live among lifeliong friends. It almost looks as if vigorous outdoor occupations have the knack of attracting common words of an immediate bluff aptness, in contrast to the intellectual sciences with their bristling logic of technical monstrosities. These contrary tendencies may be watched to-day bin the formation of the vocabulary of aviation, which recruits words both from outdoors and indoors. Terms like glide, nose-dive, spin, sideslip, take-off, which come from the practical flyers, are sure of an immediate welcome; while aerofoil, phugoid, fuselage, nacelle, with their scientific connections have a struggle for existence.
At any rate, we agreed in the end that Mr. Neville Cardus and his colleagues have an uncommonly useful lot of words to work with. Isabel had given me a bad fright, but I emerged with my faith confirmed. The cricket page will continue to shrink me into a solemn boy opening his sandwishes at the ring-side at lunch and yearning silently over the ropes that guard the hallowed square in the middle. Isabel, no dobut, will continue to dispense the lunatic interpretations of ignorance. And the reputation of the gentleman who tells me what happened at Lord's remains as before. As we went down to breakfast, Isabel asked me to write "An Intelligent Woman's Guide to Cricket". I shall not accede to this request. Ignorance, I feel, is bliss.
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