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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 8 (February 1, 1933)

Cricket Big Guns

Cricket Big Guns.

Moving picture glimpses of what old time athletes did, compared with the intensive preparations of latter-day athletes, raise the question whether the spirit of amateurism remains, even where the letter of amateurism is fulfilled. The old idea of sport was not to make every post a winning post, but to-day specialisation seeks to close every loophole that may lead to defeat and opens every loophole in the opponent's armour. Every technical device is exploited, and the partition between the fair and the unfair is thin. Even cricket has lost all the village green simplicity. It is now claimed that there is a vital difference between bowling fast bumpers as an occasional event with an offside field, and bowling them systematically with a field on the leg side (the same side of the wicket as the batsman's body is on). This dispute may wreck the Tests in Australia, and has led to an Australian protest to the M.C.C.