MCC might play Sunday cricket first in Australia

English cricketers playing before Sunday crowds in Australia. Such a dream (or should I say nightmare?) is no longer far-fetched, now that the door has been opened to first-class cricket on Sundays in two State capital cities.

For Englishmen to be involved may seem an Olympic-size leap from the first experiments in Sheffield Shield matches between two States but, in a world of change, public opinion in Australia is altering at almost Griffith-like speed, leaving officials playing rather late on the backstroke.

If and when Englishmen are to play on some Sundays, much will depend on whether the MCC would like to bring their team's matches in Brisbane and Perth in line with local custom, as has long been done on visits to the Rhodesian cities of Salisbury and Bulawayo, as well as in Tests at Bombay. Calcutta, Madras, Karachi, Lahore and other points east.

MCC now have before them the Australian Board of Control's first draft of matches for the next visit Down Under. The draft is due to be returned for reconsideration at the Australian Board's next meeting in January - nine months before the tour opens. There would be nothing to prevent the MCC Committee attaching an inquiry about how the Sunday experiment is being supported, or even mentioning that MCC would have no objection to it if any of their host States in Australia so desired.

"Never on Sunday", to borrow a film title, was the unshaken policy when the Board drafted the propositions forwarded to MCC. The Sunday issue arose at a later sitting when Board members took part in an enlarged Interstate Cricket Conference to settle conditions for Sheffield Shield matches. In a photo finish, a majority of the 15 delegates decided that when two States mutually agree they may include Sunday as a playing day.

Though details of the close vote were not disclosed at the time, the West Australian and Queensland delegates reported back to their home States that they had received the support of a Victorian and a South Australian to obtain a majority of eight to seven. Two broadminded men felt that they had no right to stand in the way of two States desiring the change.

This vote represents a significant shift of opinion since a previous West Australian move for Sunday Shield cricket in Perth, which the conference rejected, 12 votes to three, seven years ago. But of the eight who voted this year to permit Sunday play only five are members of the 13-man Board of Control. So the vote is a long way from heralding that the Victorian and South Australian Cricket Associations are on the way toward favouring Sunday play on the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Adelaide Oval (Adelaide has Sheffield Shield play every Christmas Day and once watched a Test against West Indies on this day in 1951). The Board has agreed to Australians playing on Sundays on the last two tours of India and Pakistan.

How will it work this season ?. The first Sunday play will be on November 22 at Brisbane's Test ground, Woolloongabba Oval, in Queensland's match against West Australia. Precedents for admittance charges on Sundays are well established in this State, including one day of the Australian Lawn Tennis Championships in 1956. Perth people, already used to first-grade and State Trial matches on Sundays, will see their first Sunday Shield play on December 20.

One famous English cricketer will be in the forefront of the experiments, Tony Lock, the former Surrey left-hand spinner, who is doing notable work as State coach in West Australia.

Instead of the usual Friday to Tuesday, with Sunday as a mid-match day of rest, each of these matches will be played four days straight, to close-of-play on Monday. As Tuesdays are Australia's worst attendance days, finance governed this decision, but I fear such matches will be unduly tough on bowlers and allrounders. In their Tests in India and Pakistan this October, Australia's Test players were not called on to play more than three consecutive days without a rest; play on Sunday was followed by a Monday rest day. In fact, at Calcutta. the fall of a public holiday on Monday enabled Sunday to be taken as a rest day.

An opening over at 11 a.m. on an Australian Sunday conflicts with morning service at most Christian denominational churches, though Catholic spokesmen point out that they have no objection, provided their adherents attend Mass first. Anglican and Noncomformist churchmen regret the growth of Sunday sports charging gate-money. However, the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Gough, in one of his policy statements, said the church must always be willing to change the hours of its services to suit the changing needs of the people.

Despite church protests, Sydney's Royal Agricultural Show goes at full blast on Good Friday. On this day, the showgrounds alongside Sydney Cricket Ground are thronged by an average of 140,000 people-an attendance greater than the estimated total of worshippers at all Sydney's churches on a Sunday evening. The trustees of Sydney Cricket Ground and the adjoining Sportsground, decided at their last review (1960) to continue the status quo by allowing Sunday football on the Sportsground but keeping the Cricket Ground closed. Sunday football has developed into a regular attraction.

No challenge to admittance charges at Sunday sport in this State (New South Wales) has been made for 27 years. Using his right as a common informer under the British Sunday Observance Act of 1781, a Methodist clergyman issued writs in 1937 against a Rugby League club secretary and a gatekeeper. He lost the case and had to pay heavy costs.

First-class cricket on Sundays appears to be in accord with Australian public opinion, as far as this can be judged. An Australian-wide sampling by the Gallup Poll last August found a two-to-one majority in favour of allowing football, cricket and similar spectator sports, with admittance charges like Saturdays. The poll showed 63 per cent for, 31 per cent against and 6 per cent undecided - a noteworthy change since a similar survey in 1952 found opinions fairly evenly divided.

I think it would be a mistake to conclude from this that, if Sunday play extended to all States, there would be a spectacular leap in cricket attendances. Sunday football attracts good crowds but in winter outdoor counter-attractions are fewer than on summer Sundays, when surf beaches exert an especially strong pull. As Australian licensing laws stand on the Sabbath, Sunday cricket-goers would be unable to go to the bars for the beer and other drinks they enjoy as weekday watchers; they would have to carry in their own supplies, laid in on Saturdays. For those lacking such forethought, slow batting would be harder to bear.

But if spectators turn out to be as eager as the Gallup Poll suggests, and officials increasingly heed this, no-body seems to have asked the players how they feel. If they have to turn out on Sunday, can they be given a free rest-day to take their wives and children to the beaches?