Bowes that "Lord Hawke lifted professional cricket from there to there", raising his hand from knee to shoulder height, "the professional cricketers lifted it to there", raising his hand above his head, "and even Lord Hawke always wanted it back again". Sutcliffe concluded by saying that Hobbs should have accepted the England captaincy for the sake of professional cricket. Hawke succeeded Lord Harris as MCC Treasurer in 1932 and remained in both this post and the presidency of Yorkshire until his death in 1938. He soon faced criticism for his lack of response to calls from the Australian Board of Control about the "bodyline" controversy in the 1932–33 tour. Swanton said that Hawke, along with his right-hand man Sir Stanley Jackson, needed "a lot of convincing that the English tactics constituted a menace to the game which demanded action". In Swanton's view (1986), "Hawke's place in cricket history derives more from... (Yorkshire cricket and touring activities) ...than from any outstanding service to MCC as such". But Hawke as an administrator had considerable influence on events and Swanton also wrote that, though he was never among the great players, Hawke "must stand with Thomas Lord, William Clarke and W. G. Grace among influences on the development of the game". A contemporary view of Hawke's position in the game was expressed by Grace in his Reminiscences (1899) when he wrote that "Hawke still influences what I call the politics of the game". In one of its tributes to Hawke, Wisden said: Besides being a great cricketer in the highest sense of the word, (Hawke) was an administrator who not only aimed at the general welfare of the game, but sought to preserve in it an untarnished ethical code. To him cricket was more a game. It was a philosophy that coloured his dealings with people and things. In those dealings, Hawke was never comfortable as a public speaker and is said to have loathed making speeches. Coldham wrote that "his blunders on numerous public forums were to blight his declining years". The converse of this was that Hawke had personal charm and tact which were assets to him in small groups or with individuals. Style and personality Hawke was a middle order batsman of reasonable quality who was generally considered good enough to play for the Gentlemen and may have under-achieved as a batsman, perhaps owing to the pressures of captaincy. He