CRICKET.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 76, 28 March 1908, Page 14

CRICKET.

The steady rain which fell practically all day on Saturday put an end to all thought of cricket for the afternoon. The Ponsonby team journeyed across to the Shore, and Hadden, the home skipper, wished to go on with the game, despite the existing conditions. One glance at the wicket, however, was sufficient to satisfy the umpire, and the opening of the game, as on the other grounds, was put off until to-day.

It is to be hoped that the weather will be kinder to cricketers during the next couple of matches, for without further interruption the fixtures will not end until April 25, which is somewhat of an encroachment upon tbe football season.

The first junior competition is now in a very interesting stage, Parnell A having one. point lead over Eden A. The closeness of the contest for championship honours between these two teams makes it very desirable that the remaining two matches should be pla;,-ed to a finish.

Cricket is again full of new records, and unique experiences. One of the strangest occurred in the match between Ponsonby and Parnell juniors. In the second innings each team batted a man short, and in each case the whole of the nine wickets were taken by one man, Gatland performing the feat for Parnell and Beatson for Ponsonby, Plummer, who usually takes the majority of the wicket for Ponsonby, being unable to claim a»victim.

Although the project originated In Africa, South Africans, like Australians, do not favour the triangular test idea. Imperial cricket (says the Cape Town correspondent of the"" Athletic News"), appeals from a sentimental point of view, and no one can gainsay the fact that a triangular contest such as has been suggested would arouse widespread interest. In these days, however, sentiment has to play a subordinate part, for we in South Africa recognise that it is not sentiment which can pay the expenses in England of a touring team for at least five months of the year. Another reason which has probably led to so little enthusiasm being aroused over a proposal which a year ago, would have 'been very warmly welcomed is that we are just at present suffering from the effects of an excess" of representative sport, and there is a growing idea that too much attention is being given to pastimes, to the neglect of business. The sudden rise aud development of professional running in Johannesburg has tended to strengthen this idea, and primarily on this account the Cape Colony Amateur Association has set its face strongly against the sending of a South African team to compete at the Olympian Games in England.

It seems to mc that, so far as batsmen and fieldsmen are concerned, Australia has never before had such a galaxy of talent available (writes Major Trevor, just before the departure of his team). It, for instance, it was decided that Saunders was not wanted—l do not myself agree with that view—and that Macartney could do whatever left-handed bowling was necessary, Australia's best team would contain 11 men who could all bat and field admirably. And I know of no former Australian eleven of which that could be truthfully said. Fine fielding is certainly still one of the welcome features of Australian cricket, and perhaps we have to think the matter oyer quietly for a little while before we fully realise how much we have all appreciated it. Luckily, our team, though not fielding cuite so consistently well as I expected them to field, have usually done smart work, too; and it is to the excallehce of the fielding that we owe the fact that we were not bored with much of tha ultra-defensive batting to which recourse was necessarily had in practically all the five test matches. How the present best Australian eleven would bat in England in a wet summer is hard to say. My own belief is that the men who have not been to England before would quickly accommodate themselves to the peculiarities of our wickets, for a capacity to watch the ball closely and play back strongly seems to be a i feature of -the batting of the best of Australia's younger cricketers. The bowling in Australia at the present time is not in as exceptionally encouraging a state as the fielding and the batting. Australia owns in Noble the best cricketer in the world. It is very easy to substantiate that general and unqualified statement. He has won that position by sheer intrinsic merit —by merit which is even more clear to the expert than it might be to the mere spectator, for Noble never plays—never has played —to the gallery. Regarded merely as a personal all-round cricketer, I think Noble has a right to the hrs* place on the modern cricket list, but when the effect of his influence upon others is superadded, he stands a very easy first. I have seen, and have done my best to appreciate— every Australian captain since the days of Murdoch, and I say without hesitation that, as a director of field tactics, Noble has never been surpassed. 1 am not sure that he has had his equal.

It is admitted that we Englishmen did not have what people are apt to call tbe best of the luck. I am not an authority on the subject of luck, but I am as confident as I am confident of anything that if Noble had neither captained our opponents nor given them the benefit of his advice we should at this moment be going home covered, not with the sackcloth, but with " ashes." We admit with pleasure that we have always found in Noble a strictly just and honourable opponent. Some captains in England, Australia and South Africa are quixotically cenerous one day and disappointingly obstructive the next, according to their feelings and the state of the game. Noble never concedes a point which he does not consider should legitimately be conceded; but he is not a man of moods, and be may be relied on, regardless of everything else, to consider in an emergency what is the strictly fair thing to do. Were I the captain of a first-class eleven, I would be glad to think that when the time came for mc to die my cricket death I had earned some such epitaph.

Hill and Armstrong are as good as ever, and. there is no reason, why Trumper should" not be again the Trnmper yrho: 'fluttered English pricket in 4\he yeaa;

of grace 1902. May we see Noble, Trumper, Hill, and Armstrong once more in England next year! And more especially let us hope that the chiefs of the younger brigade will come with them—the bewildering Macartney, who ought not, according to the stereotyped laws of batting, to make runs, but who makes them three times out of four all the same. Even on the fourth occasion he is worth his place in the side as fieldsman and change bowler. We shall welcome Ransford and Hartigan, who have been singularly unspoiled by great success and sudden fame. Given a dry, English summer, 1 foresee a successful tour for the Australians; given a wet one I. at least forsee some of that encouragement of which Australian bowling stands in need.

The North Sydney Club lias won the First Grade Championship of the N.B.W. Cricket Association, and East Melbourne was won the premiership of Victoria.

At a farewell gathering at Perth, the English captain, A. O. Jones, said those who had watched the test matches in Australia knew that the Englishmen had not been outclassed, as an English paper had stated. Five test matches had never been fought out with so little between the two sides, and his team had not had the best of luck.

C. Dwyer, the Fitzroy professional, leaves this week for England, where he hopes to get an engagement and quality, if possible, for a county team.

J. Hardstaff has scored more runs in the eleven-a-side matches this season than any other touring Englishmen in Australia. He played in all IS eleven-a-side games, scoring 1359 runs. With Stod-

dart's second team in 1897-S, K. S. Ranjitsinhji compiled 1157 runs in the eleven-a-side engagements, which ranks as the highest hitherto.

The New South "Wales Cricket Association derived a profit of £ 1949 from the four matches played in Sydney by the English team. But out of the sum the association will have to pay about £ 1200 towards the deficiency in the guarantee of £ 10,000 to the Marylebone Club.