THE SPORTING SCENE

It has been said that England is separated from the rest of the world by a vast gulf called cricket. If this is true, a small bridge was built across the abyss on Monday night when the Harvard Cricket Club held its first meeting of the 1955 season. For the first time since the reformation of the club three years ago it discovered enough prospective members at its organizational meeting to fill an 11-man team.

Two Englishmen, a West Indian, and Irishman, an Australian, a South African, a Bermudan, and ten Americans attended Monday's meting.

"It has been my dream for three years to have two teams turning out for Harvard," F. Courtlandt R. Gilmour, the Bermudan and this year's captain, said Monday. "Maybe this will be the year."

Veterans are scarce on the team, since last year not one of the six scheduled matches was played. Wet weekends and a slight personnel shortness conspired to prevent all activity but a few practices.

The previous season, however, was a different story. Undaunted by losses to the Staten Island Cricket Club, a team of Bostonian West Indians, and a loss to Princeton, the Crimson came back to crush Yale in the final match.

"This year we want to make the Yale game a big affair," Gilmour said. "Sort of a Test Match. We plan to have Wellesley girls serving tea, and with this large membership already, we should win the game, too."

The cricket club, which is not recognized by the H.A.A., is entirely self-supporting. It has a good supply of equipment, and, through the courtesy of the Boston Parks Department, the use of a pitch on North Harvard St., just beyond Soldiers Field.

Hodges and Gilmour, together with Stafford Salem and Neville Markham, are the only returning members of last season's matchless, veteranless, scoreless, undefeated, side.

To help fill this spring's unsettled schedule the club secretary has contacted the English Speaking Union and the British Consulate in Boston, in the hope of uncovering some new local opponents.

Cricket may not be Harvard's leading spectator sport, but at least it has a noble pat to look back on. On the main staircase of the Union is a picture of the 1902 Crimson cricket team. Underneath, it says in big letters, INTERCOLLEGIATE CHAMPIONS.

And they give PT credits.