Cricket in India
Mr. R. B. VAN WART, O.B.E.
THIS EVENING we are to hear all about cricket in India, and R. B. van Wart will contrast it with the game as played in England.
To bat in a topee with the glaring sun in your eyes can be far from pleasant, and chills and. fevers, hard ground, over-hospitable hosts are enough to ensure playing below one's form.
Van Wart , who has spent twenty years in India, was for part of that time guardian to the Rajah of Vizianagram, and as the Rajah's brother was a keen enthusiast, with the habit of inviting such English coaches as Hobbs and Sutcliffe out to India, Van Wart saw cricket at its best and worst out there.
Cricket, it appears, owes much to the Rajahs who, in their turn, have lent dazzling bats to English County Cricket.
Van Wart will tell some vivid and characteristic* stories, and the most enthusiastic advocate of Leg Theory would hardly like to stand up to body line bowling in the jungle where wild boars in the night have rooted up the pitch.