RETURNED CRICKETERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15, 19 January 1926, Page 5

RETURNED CRICKETERS.

LESSONS OF THE TOUR. I MORE TENACIOUS BATTING. ! NEED FOR FLIGHTY BOWLING. i"By Telegraph.—Speciai to "Star."> WELLINGTON, this day. The members of the New Zealand cricket team returned to-day. The ] Manager. Mr. J. Peake, in' describing i the Australian tour as successful from ! every point of view, said: "We practically satisfied the people of Australia that our cricket is better than they thought it was. Apparently our bats- j men are more enterprisinj and a little I more aggressive than theirs: we score' : quicker. lien like Geo. Griffen. Lyons ' j and Jones, of Adelaide, specially coni gratulated us. and it is something to be proud of. It is a little unfortunate j that we didn't have a small match j prior to opening at Brisbane, because j i our fellows were more tired when they j got up than when thiyy went to bed. j the temperature -being M degrees. "Our boys were "exc/mplary on and! off the field," he adrjed. -'Our treat-: ment was splendid Throughout. For ex- j ample, Adelaide had an arrangement i to give us 7.5 per cent of the net pate money. £600, but they gave us the ■Whole net receipts. We were quite prepared ■ to play a match at Wellington, and, give the Cricket Council a chance of; recovering some of the money, and we j were disappointed it could not be ar- j ranged. Enthusiasm for cricket is ! really higher in New Zealand than in; I Australia. The tour has cost about I £700. but we don't come back bankrupt." W. Patrick. the team's captain, j agreed with the manager regarding Australian opinion on the team's varied and enterprising batting. Australians, he declared, score slowly. He had seen five overs bowled to get one run at Goulburn where New Zealand scored 286 before lunch. Blunt in Sydney scored 73 runs in 73 minutes, though the average Australian took 150 minutes for that score. "Our men must I ; learn to hang on. They get *ree when j •50 goes up. They should go for the biggest score. Our bowlers have to learn something more than spinning the ball on the wicket; they must do it iin the air. without assistance from the J wicket. As soon as our fello-ws learn to flight the ball in the air they will be fine bowlers. We got ten centuries this tour as compared with one in 1913. We scored 4163 runs for 108 wickets, an average of 38 per wicket: our opponents got 4060 runs for 127 wickets, an average of 32." Patrick cordially agreed that enthusiasm for cricket is greater on this side of the Tasman.