Players, Please

For more than a century, cricketers in England have been divided between ''gentlemen,'' who were amateurs, and "Players," who were professionals. The class lines stem from the rural origins of cricket : local squires led their villagers out to do battle honorably on the green each weekend. As cricket became bigtime, tradition required that the team captains should be Gentlemen, in order to set the tone for the professional Players, who did most of the big hitting.

To keep the distinctions clear, Gentlemen and Players invariably used separate dressing rooms, often came onto the field through separate entrances. The Gentleman was Mr. Smith; the Player, just plain Smith. The 19th century cricketer, Lord Hawke, plaintively declared: "Pray God no professional shall ever captain England!"

Lord Hawke's worst fears were realized in 1952 when, in an effort to break a string of defeats, Professional Cricketer Len Hutton, a stonemason's son, was chosen to captain England in the Test Match with Australia. Tradition got additional body blows when Hutton and another Player were knighted by the Queen. Recently the gap between cricketers has become increasingly absurd, as it developed that Gentlemen were making more money out of the game than were the Players. Ted Dexter, currently leading England in the Test series against Australia, is an amateur who rakes in the cash by appearing in testimonial ads for a shirt company, writing sports articles for the London Observer, and receiving royalties on the sale of cricket bats bearing his signature. This anachronistic citadel of privilege seemed near collapse last week. An advisory committee recommended a change in the rules that doubtless will be approved by the Marylebone Cricket Club, a private club charged with setting the rules for England and the Commonwealth. Then there will no longer be either Gentlemen or Players, just Cricketers.

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