Cricket: And Now the Colonials

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Name a game, practically any game, and Americans have clasped it to their chests. The world's most sports-mad people have learned bowling from the Dutch, hockey from the Canadians, curling from the Scots, skiing from the Scandinavians, and just about everything else that anyone plays anywhere. But mention cricket, and the U.S. sports buff knows more about what it is not than what it is. He knows, for example, that it is "not cricket" to steal from petty cash, to smoke in crowded elevators, to make a pass at someone else's wife.

The British, of course, have tried to explain their national sport to Americans from time to time. After all, the colonials lived under their various majesties for almost two centuries. Indeed, history records that as late as 1859, some 25,000 people dutifully turned out to witness a cricket match in Hoboken, N.J. Still, most Americans have some difficulty understanding a game in which 1) the batter wears gloves while all but one of the fielders are barehanded, 2) runs are scored in dozens or even hundreds, 3) it takes 20 outs to end one "innings," and 4) the whole thing can last as long as six days—counting tea breaks. What baseball fan could be expected to comprehend a game in which the batter hits the ball on the bounce, runs only if he chooses to, and is considered unrefined if he swings for the fences?

Googlies. But there are a select few Americans, possibly 5,000 in a handful of colleges and clubs, who understand the complexities of cricket. They think it rather keen to serve the batsman "googlies" and "yonkers" and play positions called "second slip," "gully" and "silly mid-on." What is more, the very best of them were over in England last week impertinently challenging the masters to a match. They got a hearty welcome. Except for the U.S., cricket has spread around the empire, with frequently embarrassing results. Twice running, in 1963 and 1966, the West Indies beat England in test matches, and the English have not managed a victory over Australia since 1956.

Actually, the only two native Americans on the U.S. team were Raymond Severn, a Southern California insurance salesman, and his brother Winston. The other "Yank" cricketers were all foreign-born, hailing from more logical places like Ireland, Barbados, Australia and Ceylon. Warned London's Evening News: "It would be a gross understatement to say they know something of the game." Indeed, in their first three matches, the Americans looked impressive. They outscored the Duke of Norfolk's team 178-117 before time ran out (thereby making the match officially a draw), lost by only 15 runs to a squad called the Free Foresters, and beat the Hertfordshire county team by 35 runs.