CRICKET.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 70, 21 March 1908, Page 12

CRICKET.

I Two more rounds of the district cricket championships remain to be played. The senior district championship has been won by Eden, and by their pluck and enterprise the Mountain Club has earned and deserved the honour. From j the inception of the district scheme they ! have worked in a business like manner ! for the advancement of the club and oi the game, and. with optimistic determination, have undertaken liabilities which few would have cared to shoulder. They : have had the satisfaction ot seeing the I success of their schemes, and the further i pleasure of knowing that the great imi provement effected in Auckland cricket jin the last couple of years is largely due jto their energy. They have well deserved j the championship, and the congratulations extended to them have been sincere. Their team has been a good allround side, and they have been up to the mark in all departments of the game. The following table shows how the various clubs have fared so far: — First Inn. Sec. Inn. Lost. Pts. Eden 6 2 0 IS Grafton .. 2 •"• 4 10 City 2 -j 4 io North Shore 3 1 4 U J-'aruell ... 1 2 3 S Pousouby 0 1 7 o Like the opening day of the draw last Saturday's play was chiefly remarkable for low scoring, there being only one total, the 242 of Grafton, which was satisfactory. Eden won their match from Ponsonby on the first innings, fairly comfortably, but the Westerners gave them no chance ■of a three-point win. When play was re- : sumed they had scored 75 for the loss of I half the side, and the total was taken jto 163 before the last wicket fell. PonI sonby were without their usual attack, ; Jacobsen being absent, and White being I unable to reach the ground till some time after play had been resumed. I I. Mills carried his not-out score to 40 by attractive cricket, and then Corner, I standing out on the boundary, sent him' Ito the pavilion with a splendi deatch. j George Mills went earlier, being well I caught by Gallaher off White. Stemson i showed good form in compiling 27, making some clean hits in front of the wicket.

White was in fine bowling form, and was almost unplayable, his tally for the two days being 8 for 47, figures which, on a fair wicket, speak for thymselvcs. Pon=onby's fielding was very safe, and everything that went up was held. The ground fielding was good with the exception of McLel:an, who was decidedly below par. With a couple of hours to go, Por.sonby went to the wickets a second time with orders from Skipper Gavin to play against the clock, \\oods and ISraittiwaite were the opening pair, and they obeyed instructions so well that half tile lime had pas-ed before a separation was effected. Braithwaito was the first to go, being run out after making eight. Galiaher, who followed, only lasted a couple of bahs, and then tipped one which Havward held. Woods, while playing quietly, had a, go at the loose stuff, and made a number of very tine shots in compiling 32. Woods has been back to his old form during the last few matches. Eobinson punched a few of them in putting 23 together, most of his runs coming from the drive past the bowler. Young, who is likely to develop into a good bat, but who has not yet learned that the bowler knows something of cricket as well as the batsmen, curbed his usual impatience, and ran up 16 in good style. At about a quarter to six, when Eden had no chance of getting the rest of the side out, an appeal against the light was successful.

The feature of the game on the Domain was the fine batting of D. Hay and S. P. Jones. The Graiton skipper was in fine form, and hitting all round the wicket he took his unfinished score to 67 before Grainger got one past him. It was a fine effort, reminding the spectators of the Hay of old. Jones, too, played capitally. He kept the good stuff out, and gave the long handle to anything loose, making most of his 47 not out from the drive. Two or three of the strokes nearly dropped the ball over the boundary, and the placing was perfect all along. R. Sloman batted with great determination, and was well set when a shooter from Caro bowled him for a well-played sixteen.

j The City fielding was very much off; it could not have been much worse, being very slip-shod and careless. Grafton had a couple of hours in which to get rid of City a second time, and they managed it, City being three men short, with a quarter of an hour in hand. Barry was the first to go, a trimmer from Mason which swerved in from the off at the end of the flight, clean bowling him. Then Hemus was clean bowled for 8. an offbreak by Hay, a beautiful ball, beating the Xew Zealand rep. Ellis and Beechey made a good stand but after they had gone the wickets fell quickly, the captain of the side being the only other double figure scorer. Mason again bowled very well, 'breaking a lot and nipping off the pitch at a fast rate. He took four for 29, Hay, who was also bowling well, taking the other three for 23. Grainger has left the City, and is now residing in Te Aroha. Hemus is also living out of the City district, having gone into Ponsonby. Stemson is now residing- within the City boundary. The New Zealand Cricket Council has adopted the suggestion of the Auckland Association that the Otago challenge match should be played at Christmas time, and has asked the Otago Association to arrange accordingly. The object of the local governing body is to leave the New Year holidays open for another match, should Auckland hold the shield, while the council endorses the suggestion, so that Wellington or Canterbury may challenge Otago if the trophy goes South with them. The New Zealand Cricket Council is arranging for a visit of a New South Wales team to the Dominion next year. This is good news, for if a fair team comes over the vjsit must do good to our encket. At the same time, it is to be i

hoped that the councii,will share the profits with the associations, for all arc pretty poverty stricken. The management committee will discuss the district boundaries at its next meeting, bsinj required to report to the association before the ena of April. No very radical changes are likely. Auckland must make an effort to secure the school competition shield offered by Mr. E ,H. V\ illiams. So far nothing is known here of the conditions under which the shield is to be allotted. The Cricket Council has very wisely asked for an interpretation of the new M.C.C. qualification rule. So that it may be known exactly what is intended, and how professionals engaged in New Zealand will be affected. I hope that the management committee will seriously consider the question of holding a function before long for the presentation of trophies and the championship shield. This would be far better than the usual course of presenting them at the annual meeting. The Auckland Association has a small overdraft, but this will probably be wiped out by fees, etc., at the opening of next season, ai;d with three iuterprovincial matches in prospect there is every room for hope that next season will see the association established on a firm financial footing. .North Shore possesses a coming cricketer and a demon bowler in a car-old, schooiooy named. L. Daere. i'nu ing m the schools competition ugainst Mount i-den last Saturday, Dacre made top score, and also ran away with thu bowling average, taking no less than seven wickets at, a total cost of 14 runs. He was then for some inexplicable reason taken off by his captain, and the last Grafton wicket doubled the score. The match was eventually drawn. Xorth Shore had a very easy win against Parnell on Saturday last. The l-ariieliites were dismissed in tneir first innings for a total of 90 runs. Tha .shore men followed, and, principally as a result of the excellent batting by Howden and Wallace, knocked up 2uO runs for a loss of seven wickets, whereon Haddon declared his innings closed, hopine, no doubt, to put Parnell through thensecond innings before stumps were drawn, and thus secure a three points victory. Eight Parnell batsmen were disposed of inside an hour, but at 5.40 p.m. Sale appealed to the umpires that the light was too bad, and they concurred, declaring a two-point win for the Shore.

The feature of the match was the excellent stand made at the wickets by j Howden and Wallace, for the Shore eleven. Howden was in excellent form, | and was at the wickets 40 minutes, clur- | ing which time he compiled the handsome i total of 65, not out. He displayed no \ end of big hitting prowess, and his score ! included a liver and no less than eight | fours. Howden gave no chances, and his I boundary drives were splendid. Wallace ! also batted faultlessly, and hit up 27 runs without giving a chance. : Parnell's second innings was a fiasco. | Only one batsman reached double figures. I Wickets fell in quick succession. Tile I first throe toppled for 15 runs. Murray looked like making a stand, and three \ times in succession drove to the boundary. After snicking two or three more singles, however, he went under to a'■ very tricky ball from Howden. Breeze j realised the importance of playing against j time, and was at the wickets 2!) minutes I for a total score, of seven. Robinson i also commenced to stonewall, but did not I last long, and with 20 minutes yet to run before six o'clock, and seven wickets \ down, Sale went to the wickets. Heavy ! banks of clouds had been working up, wittu the result that the evening ha-d closed in fast, and the Parnell skipper's , appeal to the umpires resulted in stumps i i being drawn at 5.40 p.m. j

Howden is a big asset to the Shore; men, and his work on Saturday last was decidedly meritorious. After carrying I his bat through for (Jo, Hadtlon at oncy ' put him on to bowl in conjunction with ! himself. Both men trundled cleverly, I but Howdens bowling simply demoralised the Parnell batsmen. He dismissed Barry and Olifl with exactly similar balls, too utterly tricky :o cope with. His length was admirable, and his record of livewickets for 27 runs was soniethiag unusual in first grade cricket. Haddon also bowled well, and had two wickets placed to lus credit at a cost of 17 rips. | The following four players have scored j over 1000 runs in Oligo representative I cricket:—J. Baker, 54 snatches. 1000 runs; H. G. Siedeberg, 32 matches, 1181 runs; G. G- Austin, 34 matches, 111 runs; A. H. Fisher, 46 matches, 1073 runs.

I Mr. A. 0. Jones, the English captain, who has subscribed one guinea to the Noble Testimonial Fund, stated that in I his opinion Koble is the finest all-round cricketer of the day; and, more than that, he is one of the best sportsmen he has had to deal with in the game. It is announced that Mr. A. C. MacLaren will not play regularly for Lancashire in 1008. At present he is acting as private secretary to Ranjitsinhji, who, under his new title of -Jam of Nawanagar, has taken Lord Winterton's Sussex seat, Shillinglee Park. It is further stated that though Eanjitsinhji is not in particularly good health, he intends to bat once or tw-ice for Sussex in the coming season. The police in Melbourne have secured the names of several members of the Melbourne Cricket Ground who were seen to give pass-out checks to people waiting outside the ground while the test matches were in progress. The practice was for a member to leave the reserve by the grandstand gate, where pass-out checks are given. Outside he would either sell or give the check away. Then the member would return by the members' gate. The ground authorities have been given the nnmes. "If we assume that it is expedient to suppress the importation of ready-maae professionals, the suppression should not be brought about by an indirect measure, which may be taken as an indication of partisan jealousy. To provoke a misunderstanding with colonial cricketers on account of Tarrant is to burn down a very fine house for the sake of roasting a very small pig." The "Field" approves of the decision of the M.C.C., that no cricketer may play for a county and a colony in the same year. j