CRICKET.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 53, 3 March 1900, Page 4 (Supplement)

CRICKET.

The Cup matches of the fifth round were continued this afternoon after a very long' interval. Though the cricketers gave tip the ground for the best of purposes, yet it is hard to see how cricket is ever going- to take its proper place in Auckland if there are so many interruptions. The fact that the local Association lost money over the Melbourne match denotes a state of things which needs no comment. The Auckland-Wellinglon match is fixed for flood Friday, Saturday and I Easter Monday, and a very even game j may be looked for, as, on their form lin representative matches this season, | the two provinces seem to be fairly equal in strength. \n the second match of their tour, ■that against Wanganui, the Victorians i did not fare so well as against Auckland. This was' mainly owing- to the indifferent wicket. Still, a great deal of credit must be given to the Wanganui team for making' such a close finish of the match. The excitement j at the end of the game must have been I intense, for the visitors only won by 'two wickets. For the Victorians Mailler (G.1!), Aitken (20) and Graham (45) maintained their reputations in the first innings as batsmen, but the redoubtable Trumble rather fell off, scoring only 12 and 0. For Wanganui Gillies (20), McCarthy (29 and !>4), Francis (JiG) were the highest scorers, j Wanganui appear to have two good bowlers in L. Cave and McCarthy, the former of whom took nine wickets for 97 and the latter five for 57. In the match against Wellington the visitors seem to have repeated their j Auckland performance. Their first i innings realised the big total of 430, eight of the team getting into double figures, Graham and Mailler especially keeping up their reputation for conIsistency. Wellington fared even worse than Auckland; they scored only 65 and GG, and were thus beaten by an innings and 299 runs. Trumble and Cave came out with an almost equal average. Truly, both Trumble and Cave, especially the former, have about them that "divinity that doth hedge a king" (i.e., in these days, a great bowier), and so arc not amenable to the laws that govern common or garden bowlers. "Slip," in the Otago "Witness," has the following:—"The selector of the New Zealand team docs not lay his work open to very serious criticism. But I do marvel greatly at his selection of Arnold Williams, apparently as the wicket-keeper of. the team. The fact that Williams has failed to get a place in the Wellington team should have disposed entirely of any pretensions on his part to the securing- of a plnee in the New Zealand, team, for I take it, that the Wellington Association knows best whether lie is or is not, on this season's play, inferior to JS'ivcn. it is. however, notorious that he rarely scrapes up a run in club cricket — that, as a batsman, he has gone clean oil. Take away the batting abilities that he used to possess, and he is not the superior of the wicket-keeper of any of the provincial representative reams. His inclusion seems to me to be the great, blot on the team. The exclusion of J). Hay will be regarded in Auckland as a mistake, and I defer to that opinion, but in the weakness of the team in bowling I am tinablu to see that the selector went wrongin preferring Stemson. Prankish has improved so much as a bowler since last season that the objection I then expressed to his inclusion in the New Zealand team docs not apply so strongly, but I have not much hopes of his success with the ball-—it will not surprise me if he makes runs instead— and 1 do not at all like fpham's inclusion. Still, the attack had to be provided for somehow, and the selector has made a lair job of it." In connection with the above, it may be said that Hie high/opinion which the visitors formed of I). Hay's play .strengthens that player's right to a place in the New Zealand team. The receipts of the benefit cricket match Australian Eleven v. Best of j Australia were £<j-te 10/10. The plnyj era from the other colonies, though [presumably amateurs, sent in accounts I for fees amounting1 to £100, This ! amount did not Include any travelling jor hotel expenses, but was entirely the hiring fee, which is nowadays paid jto so-called amateurs. I Cricketers throughout Xew Zealand j will all have been sorry to learn from j the cables that the Marylebone Club j !>i\a decided to abandon the proposed visit of an English team to Australia this year. The whole cricketing world was looking forward to some great j battles between England and AiistraI lia, which would have been all the J greater in view of the Australians' I recent success at Home. The war is ! the cause of the abandonment. It is i natural that those who excel at cricket [ and other outdoor sports should be the very ones required at the front. It may be mentioned that Major- | General the Honorable N. G. Lyttelton, | who commanded the middle column i when General Buller was repulsed | at the Tugela, is a good cricketer, and ; a member of the M.C.C., .1. Zingari, and Free Foresters. ! Mr Halliwell, acting as war correspondent at Mafeking-, is the wellknown wicket-keeper, once for Middlesex and of late for Johannesburg' against Mr Warner's team. Somerset cricket is represented at the front by that welll-known player Captain Hedley, of the 17th Field Company of the Royal Engineers. Mr George Kemp, M.P. t who is going out, was in the Cambridge eleven in ISBS-6 and 188S, and the Lancashire eleven in ISSS and ISO 3. He is a good golfer, and reached the semi-final of the Parliamentary Handicap in 189 S. In the same year he was also a. seniifinalist in the Prince's Club tennis handicap. He. has played tennis for many years, and represented Cambridge in 188 C. ~ ... Mr A. -N. Hornby, the well-known Tjancashire cricketer, has a son going out. Mr George Hornby is a lieutenant in the Cheshire Militia, arid has been accepted for service with the 22nd Cheshire Regiment, Like his father he is a regular follower of the hounds.—London'"Kef eree."

English cricketers have come forward in their country's cause with creditable alacrity. Lord Harris, who has, played for Eton, Oxford, Kent, Gentlemen, and England—thus gaining every possible cricket honour —has volunteered. Dr. A. Couan Doyle, novelist, cricketer, golfer, cycler, boxer, and allround sportsman, has volunteered anc!. been accepted for hospital work, and is expected to leave for the front in the near future, as also is C. B. Fry, who has demonstrated his right to be regarded as a representative exponent of cricket, as well as of football,- jumping, and sprinting1. li. P. Lewis, the old Winchester, Oxford University, and Middlesex wicket-keeper, is going with the City's Own. R. W. Fox, the Oxford and Sussex wicket-keeper, has relinquished his reading at Oxford and enlisted in the Dragoons in order- to serve in South Africa. Auckland (says "Not Out" in the Sydney "Referee") has never managed to beat any of the teams from Australia. The match with the first New South Wales team in 1890 was drawn; in 1594 the province was beaten by nine wickets; and in January, 189G, another draw resulted. Auckland also played a draw in December, .189(5, with Queensland, who, like New Houth Wales, had a solid first innings lead. Two members of the New Zealand team which visited Australia last season, in the brothers G. and I. Mills, played for- Auckland in last week's match. y c Pavilion " in Ihe Wellington "Post" has the following re the New Zealand team :—"The most notable absentees are Dug Hay (Auckland), and Midlahe (Wellington). It is unfortunate that.the former should have shown such poor form on the occasion when the selector met him, as on his day he is one of the best all-round youngsters in the colony. His weakness is perhaps a tendency to unduly force the pace when batting-, and in. consequence he often sacrifices his wicket through a bad habit of leaving his ground. Midlane is at present suc-h a fine batsman that it is hard to imagine a New Zealand team without him. With an old head on young shoulders he has batted this season so safely, and yet; so freely. It would probably be no exaggeration to say that he is one of the three best batsmen in the colony. His scores so far this season have been — 4, 6, 21 (not out), C, 30, and 17 (Canterbury), 149 (Otago), G4, 107 (not out), 21, and 56, making an aggregate of 481, and an average oE 53.44. Probably the fact that he is a batsman only has told against him, but with. Ihe amount of bowling talent in the team, 1' think a place might easily have been found for him. Very little is known of Stemson outside his own i province. His selection may come as a surprise to some, but probably there is no more useful man (bar Cobcroft) in the team. Both as a bat and bowler he has a happy knack of coming off at the right time, and his performance against Otago this season Avhen things were going badly for Auckland shows that he is in good form."