by Arunabha Sengupta
“He was obsessed with the book,” recalls the old bookseller. “Whenever he was around, he asked if I was stocking it. Once he even told me I was charging way too less for it.”
John McKenzie was referring to Jack Fingleton, his visits to the shop well into the 1970s. And the book in question was the 1946 publication, Cricket Crisis.
As Mayukh Ghosh says, many agree that book is one of the best written about cricket —including a large proportion who haven’t read it.
But what was the book about?
Cricket Crisis was ostensibly partitioned into two sections. One half about Bodyline and the other about Other Lines. In reality it was a book about Don Bradman. A series of contrived excuses to put him in the pages, to camouflage the name in enormous praises, and then to bludgeon him with a barrage of pathetic potshots —in a manner intended to be subtle but which comes across as genuinely crass,
Bodyline is all about how it was devised because of Bradman’s record breaking inclinations, how Bradman did not like short, fast, rising deliveries, how McCabe and the rest of them, (including a hint of Fingleton himself as a batsman), played Bodyline more courageously than the great man. (One wonders why Bradman still averaged 33% better than any other batsman in the team against a type of bowling he did not like and did not play well)
The rest of the book frequently revisits Bradman’s popularity, fame, personality, ruthlessness, business sense, difficulties on wet wickets…
Oval, 1930, is looked at, not because of Bradman’s double hundred, but because of his discomfort against Larwood after it had rained.
Bradman appears in 118 of the 306 pages of the book, and is a continuing theme in many more. While his propensity for setting records and piling monstrous scores are glossed over, it is often curiously given the complexion of a character flaw.
Never more so in a rather desperate little chapter titled Our World Eleven. In that Fingleton, with an unnamed friend, indulges in that irresistible pastime of cricket tragics … creating a World XI.
The two pick an eleven to set out on a World Tour immediately after the Global War is over. We can therefore assume that the hypothetical after-dinner conversation takes place sometime during the 1939-45 period. At that stage Bradman had 5093 runs from 37 Tests at 97.94 with 21 hundreds. Well, somehow he bettered those figures after World War 2. In 188 first-class matches he had 22,863 runs at 95.66 with 78 hundreds.
And this is how their conversation run.
His friend says, “I am not sure that Bradman will be in my side.”
I smiled at him. (Fingleton plays a role which his curious mind would readily agree as that of the Devil’s Advocate.
Imaginary Friend: “No, I’m serious. Our team is not to be one to win matches … Bradman is a gigantic amasser of runs, but dud Bradman have any cultural grace not possessed by other batsmen? I don’t think he did?”
Fingleton: “His footwork was unequalled … and I also saw nobody come near him in making a placement of afield look futile.”
Imaginary Friend: “I agree … but the purposes for which we want this team, Bradman was too good. He is too good for my side because he is too dominant, and being too dominant, he defeats a principal objective. I think other batsmen had graceful batting contours not possessed by Bradman. In an afternoon’s play by our team I want to see on show many varied batting styles. Bradman would bat all the afternoon and swamp the others.”
Fingleton: “I agree to a point. Bradman in a team had a depressing effect upon the play of others. The best example was McCabe, who rarely did his genius justice in big cricket.”
And with this preposterous argument, Bradman is left out—a man averaging 97 in Tests and 95 in first-class cricket at that moment. The team read Ponsford, Headley, Hammond, Duleepsinhji, McCabe, Cameron, Constantine, Larwood, Tate, Grimmett, O’Reilly. Even Frank Chester and baggage man Fergie is talked about.
Thus the sole purpose of the chapter, the imaginary friend, and even perhaps the unfinished task of the book was achieved. Ousting Bradman by banking upon some of the most incredible reasoning possible. The entire book is nothing but that.
It is not really a great book. The relevant cricketing wisdom gets seriously hazy behind the raging fumes of Fingleton’s irrational hatred—there is no other word—for Bradman.
The later hagiography of Victor Trumper was penned with more or less the same purpose.
Fingleton was a gutsy cricketer. He averaged 42 in Tests, which was commendable. Much of it was helped by amassing three hundreds against the weak South Africans in 1935-36. One can say that against the pedestrian bowling he managed to approach something of what Bradman did against the best of them.
He fought hard against Bodyline, but managed just 150 runs at 25.00 with a solitary fifty. Bradman scored 396 at 56.57. With a hundred and three fifties.
Fingleton was a swell human being as well. It was he who arranged for Larwood to settle in Australia. In 1957-58, he coaxed Robert Menzies to help arrange a meeting with South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd. In the conversation, he had the temerity to tell the Architect of Apartheid that no democratic country could tolerate detention laws.
He was an insightful writer, as long as he steered clear of Bradman. Most often he did not. He carried his self-destructive revulsion to his grave.
Jack Fingleton was born on April 28, 1908. Or 121 days before Don Bradman.