Notes from the boundary
On 22 August 1936, the Sydney newspaper The Sun trumpeted its signing of a legendary British cricket journalist to report on the upcoming Ashes Test matches Down Under. Never mind the opposition’s crack players – ‘it will not be one of those who will be the star of the English visitors,’ boasted the paper; ‘Neville Cardus, whose stories of cricket are acknowledged to be the finest in the language, will have a greater and happier audience than any cricketer ever had.’
The Sun was, of course, indulging in shameless hyperbole to attract readers, but other Australian newspapers agreed that the 48-yearold Cardus’s acclaimed prose – long associated with the Manchester Guardian – would be an adornment to the Ashes series. Cardus was ‘the prince of cricket writers’ said one commentator.
Much rarer were references to Cardus as the equally eminent music critic. Tell-tale evidence stole into his reports once the Tests began: so slow and drawn-out was the Australian batting at one point that, compared with it, ‘Wagner’s cycle has all the brevity of wit’. When run-machine Don Bradman strolled out to bat in front of a vast crowd at Brisbane, he
