Nothing that ever came out of England has had such an influence on character and nation building as this wonderful game of ours. Nothing that happens in any British community in normal times possesses the same quality of bringing out enthusiasm, national partisanship and downright interest as a Test Match. The cricket instinct seems to be born in the flesh and bred in the bone of every one of us. In Australia it is as virile as ever it was in England. There is no game that• brings men so close together on a high level as cricket, no game that is quite so conducive to the initiation of healthy discussion, the free exchange of opinions and the declaration of candid views.
Each and every one who plays or watches cricket becomes a self-constituted authority. Most of us know quite a lot about the game; no one is absolutely ignorant of it. There is no thrill in anything else like that which manifests itself when an apparently beaten team fights its way to victory through all kinds of adversity, and always by clean methods; and nothing that I know of touches the finer feelings of humanity more than the unobtrusive demonstration of true sportsmanship on the field, the observance of that unwritten law under which a player refuses to profit by an umpire’s mistake or a fielder’s misfortune. Both for the player and the onlooker there is an exhilarating joy in success and a compensating education in defeat. Cricket teaches us never to use our mental or physical powers in an unworthy way. lt teaches honesty, appreciation, persistency, loyalty, enthusiasm, fair-play, fighting spirit, self-control, unselfishness, and, above all, how to accept success and defeat. That is what we call “playing the game."