THE TEST MATCHES.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 271, 13 November 1909, Page 7

THE TEST MATCHES.

I INTERVIEW WITH A. E. KELF. i One of our representatives had I a five minutes' talk with Mr lA. E. Relf about the English j season and about the Teet matches more particularly. Relf, it will ba remembered, played for All England in the second Test at Lord's, and was twelfth mail in the first Test at Birmingham and in the third Test at Leeds. Spea-king of the English season, he said: "Yea, perhaps it has been more a bowlers' than a batsmen's' year. The summer has been a very, very bad. one, and some oT our leading bats have not come off." Mr. Keif was rather diffident as to saying anything at all about the Test matches, but eventually did say a little i , —to what did he attribute the success of the Australians? Their very fine fielding had a great deal to do with it. 1 Also, of course, they were a very good all-round lot of players, with no voir*' ( bright, particular star amongst them. Noble was unquestionably a great cap- . tain, and he made the very best use of his men. It was ratheT remarkable : how Bardsley, Ransford, and Macartney \ came off on their first trip. It seemed . extraordinary, too, how one of the Aus- '. tralian bowlers turned up trumps . when he was most wanted—Armstrong .- in the Lord's match, Cotter and Macartney at Leeds, and Layer at Manchester, ' were all invaluable to their side on [ particular days. Lever's success in England was really wonderful. It was certainly a serious loss to England when Jessop strained himself at Leeds, but even his assistance could hardly have saved his side from disaster, when the best the remainaer could make against Macartney and Cotter was 84. All through the matches it was not the bowlers, but the batsmen, who let England down. And, of course, the English fielding was not up to the Australian standard. He thought the Australians • were to be deservedly congratulated on the way they had picked themselves uj> after their bad beginning. M.C.C. beat i them, Surrey beat them, and they lost [ the first Test, and then they began to . win,' end after that they never Jooked , back. They wore not again beaten till Lord Londesborough/s team beat . them at the end of the season at the ! Scarborough festival. j Mr. Bell refused to be drawn on the '• subject' of the selection of the English teams.