Ambassadors of Goodwill

Mark Peel

Description

Since Victorian times, the MCC had embraced the amateur ideal that cricket was more than a game. It was the very essence of camaraderie and good sportsmanship. Yet for all their evangelising, the game's privileged elite were part of a British establishment which revelled in its national prestige and imperial hegemony. And winning at cricket was essential to maintaining that stature. Ambassadors of Goodwill assesses the MCC's attempt to marry these conflicting objectives and foster goodwill within the Empire via long, formal overseas tours. After the war, the amateur ideal suffered when Len Hutton was appointed England's first professional captain. His uncompromising leadership brought success on the field but discord off it. Managers were installed to restore diplomatic harmony but, with the growing upheavals of the late 60s, cricket became increasingly associated with nationality, race and professional cynicism. Ray Illingworth's controversial win in Australia in 1970/71 clearly signalled the MCC's waning influence.

Sujets

• Críquet
• Cricket

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 02 avril 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785314100
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2018
Pitch Publishing A2 Yeoman Gate Yeoman Way Durrington BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Mark Peel, 2018
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-1-78531-380-6 eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-410-0
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Australia and New Zealand 1946/47
2 West Indies 1947/48
3 South Africa 1948/49
4 Australia and New Zealand 1950/51
5 India, Pakistan and Ceylon 1951/52
6 West Indies 1953/54
7 Australia and New Zealand 1954/55
8 South Africa 1956/57
9 Australia and New Zealand 1958/59
10 West Indies 1959/60
11 India, Pakistan and Ceylon 1961/62
12 Australia and New Zealand 1962/63
13 India 1963/64
14 South Africa 1964/65
15 Australia 1965/66
16 Those left behind: wives and families
17 West Indies 1967/68
18 The Tour that Never Was: South Africa 1968/69
19 Ceylon and Pakistan 1968/69
20 Australia 1970/71
Conclusion
Bibliography
Endnotes
Acknowledgements
I D like to thank the following for having put their recollections about touring at my disposal: Mike Griffith, John Murray, Peter Parfitt, Jim Parks, Pat Pocock, Mike Smith and John Woodcock.
I d also like to extend my thanks to the Library and Research Manager of the MCC Library at Lord s, Neil Robinson, for all his help over many visits and for permission to quote from the MCC Archives; to the MCC Archivist, Robert Curphey, for all his help and advice; and to the staff at the Central Library, Edinburgh, the National Library of Scotland, the Melbourne Cricket Club Library and the New South Wales State Library.
In addition, I m also indebted to Ivo Tennant, who read parts of the book; to my agent, Andrew Lownie, for all his efforts on my behalf; to Graham Hughes for his invaluable editing and proofreading; and to Jane Camillin (director), Duncan Olner, Dean Rockett, Graham Hales and Derek Hammond of Pitch Publishing for bringing the project to fruition.
Mark Peel
Introduction
T HE very word cricket has become a synonym for all that is true and honest, declared the MCC manager Pelham Warner as he greeted the local press at the beginning of their 1932/33 tour to Australia. An incautious attitude or gesture in the field, a lack of consideration in the committee room and a failure to see the other side s point of view, a hasty judgement by an onlooker and a misconstruction of an incident may cause trouble and misunderstanding which could and should be avoided. This is the aim of the Marylebone Cricket Club, of which I am a humble if devoted servant, in sending teams to all parts of the world to spread the gospel of British fair play as developed in its national sport. 1
Ever since Victorian times, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) had fully embraced the amateur ideal that cricket was more than a game: it was the very essence of camaraderie and good sportsmanship. Yet for all their evangelising and moral posturing, the club s privileged elite were part of a British establishment which revelled in its national prestige and imperial hegemony. Winning at cricket, as with other sports, was essential to maintaining that hegemony. Beneath the stuffy, benign image of public service cultivated by British imperialism lay a more strident belief in the mission of the English people, wrote Richard Holt in his book Sport and the British . Sports were not just the source of high-minded ideals, they were inseparably associated with the more down-to-earth, assertive and patriotic Englishness. W.G. Grace was not an English national hero because he played the game (which he most emphatically did not); it was his boundless energy, his competitiveness, his huge stature, and simplicity that made him the quintessence of Englishness. 2
The ambivalence between Warner the high apostle of fair play on one hand, and the patriotic Englishman to whom winning was everything on the other, was exposed all too starkly in Australia 1932/33. His opening speech soon appeared to be mere humbug, since his captain, Douglas Jardine, instructed his fast bowlers to bowl persistently at the body of the Australian batsmen to counter the threat posed by the genius of Don Bradman. It prompted one of the most toxic exchanges in cricket, when the Australian captain, Bill Woodfull, bluntly told Warner during the third Test at Adelaide that one side was playing cricket and the other wasn t. The Australian Board of Control for International Cricket (ABC) protested in a similar vein to MCC, and in time the latter came to accept that bodyline didn t equate with their self-professed ideals of sportsmanship. They legislated against it and further buried the hatchet by ensuring that short-pitched bowling was all but absent in subsequent Ashes encounters during the rest of the decade.
After the horrors of the Second World War, the idea of playing cricket for mere pleasure was given renewed emphasis. Although the Britain of 1945 was no longer the imperial power of old, MCC still held sway within the cricketing universe. Their values of enterprising cricket, fair play and good fellowship were constantly reiterated, not least on tour, when England players were expected to represent their country off the field as much as on it. Given the growing discord within the British Commonwealth, the mass media s attachment to winning and the greater financial rewards now available, living up to these ideals proved a tall order, as this book shows.
On 30 August 1946, British prime minister Clement Attlee reminded the MCC team on their departure to Australia that they were embarking on a goodwill mission, sentiments which found little accord with the Australian captain, Bradman (see Chapter 1 ). The greatest batsman of all time, Bradman had deeply resented bodyline, and, unaffected by the spirit of the Victory Tests of 1945, he played to win at all costs. His intentions were made plain from the beginning of the first Test at Brisbane, when he became embroiled in one of the game s great controversies. Having struggled to 28, he edged fast bowler Bill Voce to Jack Ikin at second slip but refused to walk, claiming that the ball had bounced. The umpire ruled in his favour, much to the fury of England s captain, Walter Hammond, who conveyed his disgust to Bradman at the end of the over. Although most present thought Bradman was fortunate to survive, he made the most of his reprieve, going on to score 187 and paving the way for an overwhelming Australian victory. The incident, however, left a legacy of bitterness between the two teams as Bradman took every opportunity to humble his opponents. We are the first Ambassadors ever embroiled in war while on a goodwill mission, an England player told Australian cricket reporter Clif Cary. They kept their frustrations to themselves, and won the gratitude of a host nation lost in admiration for the mother country that had endured so much during the war.
During subsequent MCC tours, the amateur spirit prevailed both in good times - South Africa 1948/49 - and bad - Australia 1950/51 (see Chapters 3 and 4 ), but all this began to change when Len Hutton became England s first professional captain in 1952. Reared in the austere Yorkshire dressing room of the 1930s with its will to win against all comers, Hutton brought this same uncompromising ethos to the England captaincy. Disdainful of foreigners and discouraging his players from consorting with their opponents off the field, he flatly rejected the hand of friendship offered by his West Indian hosts on tour in 1953/54 (see Chapter 6 ). While some of the political grandstanding, umpiring and crowd behaviour in the Caribbean left much to be desired, any sympathy for MCC soon evaporated because of their petulance on the field and condescension off it. Even though they fought back from 2-0 down to draw the series, primarily because of Hutton s prowess with the bat, the tour is best remembered for all the wrong reasons. The repercussions alarmed the hierarchy at Lord s enough for them to contemplate replacing Hutton as captain for the tour to Australia the following winter with the amateur David Sheppard, soon to become an ordained Anglican priest. In the end, they stood by Hutton, and he responded by becoming the first MCC captain since Jardine to win there. It was a notable achievement, but some of the gloss of victory was removed by his cynical tactics, most notably the slowing down of the over rate to preserve the energy of his fast bowlers and prevent the Australian batsmen from scoring quickly (see Chapter 7 ).
Following Hutton s retirement in 1955, the torch was passed to Peter May, his vice-captain. A batsman of true class, May s self-effacing modesty and integrity concealed a steely desire to win. Cast in the same attritional mould as Hutton, he pursued a policy of slow over rates and defensive field placings that nettled his opponents in South Africa 1956/57 and in Australia 1958/59, a tour tainted by allegations of throwing (see Chapters 8 and 9 ).
England s 4-0 thrashing in Australia led to the break-up of their victorious side of the 1950s and its replacement by a younger, more conformist one in the West Indies in 1959/60 (see Chapter 10 ). Dismissed as no-hopers before they sailed, they played with great determination to win the series 1-0 owing to a decisive victory in the second Tes