Finally, words of wisdom, not only to cricketers, but to all sportsmen.
No doubt many of you were disappointed over my poor scores in the tests in Australia. I can assure you that nobody was as upset as I was. In the customary words of my old schoolmaster, just after he had applied the cane, “it hurt me, my boy, more than it hurt you."
For me the lesson of that tour was that nowhere in life can success be taken for granted. In sport this is particularly true. That is why the playing of sport is so beneficial to young people.
Nothing is better suited to reducing the size of a swollen head. The century-maker of today may be out for a duck tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. You’ll find that usually those who reach the top in any sport are modest individuals. In spite of all their triumphs most of them have also tasted the bitters of failure. They never know when their next is at hand.
I think that in Australia I experienced enough failures to last me for a long time. Happily the sun smiled again on my return home.