The Wicket Cricket Critic

If the cricket critics' nagging Merits stern official gagging Which I doubt How would critical ascetics, With their prosy homiletics, Shut it out? And the question then arises: If more cricketing surprises, Such as bodyline, begin to threaten cricket, And another stunt, when sprung, Call for clicking of the tongue, Should a cricket critic critically click it? When the barrackers grow lyric In a manner most satiric And profane, How, one ventures still to wonder, May the clamor be kept under? How restrain? For one barbaric larrik- In can do a lot of barrack- In', and cause a lot of worry at the wicket. But would sportsmen be abusing Cricket canons in refusing To supply that cricket critic with a ticket? As a critic analytic Of the cricket critics' critic I would say, When we criticise their cricket, Then the players have to stick it, Come what may. No specific soporific May be used; for it is diffic- Ult to strike a critic partly paralytic. So there's nothing gained in seeking, As I know; and I am speaking As a critic of the cricket critic's critic.