“In recent years the gap between amateurs and professionals had become quite spurious, with some leading amateurs making more money out of the game than the professionals as England’s present captain Mr. E. R. Dexter, frankly admitted recently. In abolishing the theoretical distinction between the playing categories, the M.C.C. has therefore taken a realistic view.”
FEBRUARY 2, 1963
Cricketers All
AN AGE-OLD BARRIER HAS FALLEN AND GOOD RIDDANCE. Cricket will have no Gentlemen and no Players any more but just cricketers. This happy development has been brought about by the decision now taken by the game’s governing body, the Marylebone Cricket Club, to do away with the amateur status. Compartmentalisation of practitioners of the willow into Gentlemen (to wit, amateurs) and Players (meaning, professionals) has been as old as the game itself and time was when the wall between the Mister Smiths and the plain Smiths was so solid they had to use separate dressing rooms and even had to enter the field through separate entrances and no professional could ever captain a team. The first crack in this tradition occurred, and appropriately, when Jack Hobbs, the greatest of them all, was called upon at a pinch to captain England against Australia in the Third Test of the 1926 series in the absence due to illness of Mr. A. W. Carr. And the break with the past was completed 26 years later when another professional, Len Hutton, was chosen to lead England on a regular basis. In recent years the gap between amateurs and professionals had become quite spurious, with some leading amateurs making more money out of the game than the professionals, as England’s present captain Mr. E. R. Dexter, frankly admitted recently. In abolishing the theoretical distinction between the playing categories, the M.C.C. has therefore taken a realistic view.
But the anachronistic distinction still prevails in many other branches of sport. In tennis the position is even worse. Professionals are barred from the Davis Cup and other tournaments like Wimbledon. The result is an absurd situation. The No. 1 amateur is hailed as the world champion even though it is well known he cannot stand up to any one of the top professionals. And the irony of it all is that amateurism exists only in name. Many amateurs are earning comfortable incomes from tennis by extracting from tournament organisers liberal expenses and other perquisites. Tennis is also probably the only game in which an amateur is prohibited from playing a match against a “pro”. This rule is leading to the game’s slow death. With every prominent amateur turning professional and those left in the amateur ranks denied opportunity to play against their superiors and thus get their steel tempered, the standards of amateur tennis is steadily deteriorating. The “Grand Slam” winner, Laver, on turning professional, could not win even once in his first ten encounters with the “pros”. The international tennis authorities would do well to take a leaf out of the M.C.C’s book and put an end to the present caste system or at least permit “open” tournaments in which both amateurs and professionals can participate. The longer they delay it, the worse for tennis.
Reference:
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978, THE HINDU, VOLUME I