In defence of cricket
The clergyman who (according to a recent cable) stigmatised cricket as a “loafing, lazy game” was, as the phrase goes, looking for trouble. Little wonder that Mr “Plum” Warner (who, as it is pleasant to remember, once made 206 at Carisbrook, after being missed before he had scored) felt compelled to challenge the malign indictment, and to champion the honour of the pastime which, after some 30 strenuous summers, he has just relinquished, amid mingled congratulations and condolences. He would not relish the idea of having devoted so large a portion of his ample leisure to a pursuit deserving such a opprobrious epithets as “loafing” and “lazy”, and
naturally he was reminded of Rudyard Kipling’s too memorable saying about “the flannelled fools at the wicket and the muddied oafs at the goal”. It seems that he once boldly asked that brilliant but heady versifier whether he really meant what he had written; and the characteristic answer was: “In this world, if you do not exaggerate, nobody will take any notice of you.”