Fifties Cricketers Caught A Glimpse Of Reality

Newcastle Herald

Tuesday February 5, 2008

Darrell Crocker

"I THINK one thing that a lot of people overlook is that we are not playing cricket in the 1950s, and a lot of people, I think, are still living in the 1950s," Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting said recently, and it's an interesting assessment.

He's right, it's certainly not the 1950s. Most wicketkeepers and first-class cricketers asked to field in the slips cordon in that era could actually catch.

No, they weren't fully professional. No American fielding coaches. No time for more drills than the dentistry industry.

Practise, yes, where possible, but more importantly the imperative to do well because they actually had the chance to represent their country.

It's instructive to look at how cricketers view themselves in the world of their time.

Sir Donald Bradman told the 1948 Australian team that he wanted to grind England into the dirt in winning back the Ashes. His mentality had been forged by the loss of the Ashes to England in the 1932-33 Bodyline series.

The famous all-rounder of the team, Keith Miller, said he had no intention of approaching the game that way. He told The Don that he was just happy to be back playing cricket after fighting a war with the Poms by his side.

His mentality had been forged by "Messerschmitts up my arse".

The 1948 team became known as The Invincibles and Bradman and Miller both had their way.

In a sense Australian cricket itself has been forged by the combining of these seemingly contrary "Bradmanian" and "Millerian" approaches. The hard nose and the joie de vivre.

Let's not forget that Bradman at one stage had threatened not to play for Australia unless he was allowed to continue his well-recompensed newspaper column. Miller's approach to setting a field was to tell his men to "scatter" as he led them onto the ground.

The Millerian approach takes us back to the great leg-spinner of the 1920s, Arthur Mailey. Early in his career he dismissed the superstar Victor Trumper during a Sydney grade match and later opined "it was as if I'd shot a dove".

Not too many of the current crop would express themselves in similar vein.

"We're playing a fully professional game and we're all being paid that way," says Ponting.

How true, but it begs the question of why today's players carry on like they do?

The cricketers of the 1950s had been through World War II, either as enlisted men or youngsters enduring rationing. And wondering what the world was coming to.

Many of the older players of the 1950s had also been through the Depression.

And many of the cricketers of the 1950s had to give up a career to live the dream of playing first-class cricket. Dare I say that ensured a more professional approach than today's players. If the family and/or the boss had supported you financially or given you time off to play, you couldn't afford to perform poorly.

What a shame Adam Gilchrist wasn't appointed captain instead of Ponting. We could've been singing along to Ronnie Milsap's Lost in the Fifties Tonight.

dcroker@theherald.com.au