WOMEN AT CRICKET.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 221, 18 September 1929, Page 6

WOMEN AT CRICKET.

Tlia { cricket correspondent of the "Times" discusses -fl te strength and weakness of women as cricketea I. He says that for other than physical reasons, muscular strength and speed of foot, boys hai%-> a great advantage over girls at cricket. The tradl i lions of two centuries are behind them. It is unj kely that any girl cricketer of to-day derives ft» am a grandmother who ever handled a bat or afl ;empted to throw a ball. Mrs. HeronMaxwell x ?»d the other organisers of the Women's Cricket As tociation arc fully aware of these facts and realise their significance. They do not expect, or even hoj ie, that some day inter-sex matches of sorts may 1 >e worth playing. . . . Their representative ti earn would at least make a match of it with anj r eleven boys under sixteen years oi age that oi. vuld be collected. In one important matter thej' would have the better of it. There is no catch ,Hoo easy for a boy of fifteen to miss. He who offqi "8 a "sitter" to a young woman may as well start to walk out. Fielding is the department of thd game in which the girls have made most progrei »s towards the full development of their natural'' ability. Their concentration is entirely admirt, ble. They will put a hand to the hardest hit I t! they can get it there in time, a large provis* >„ for they are lamentably slow starters. Tht, -tr throwing is a revelation; it would surely deceive ythe old lady who so readily penetrated Hucklfli Jerry Finn's disguise. The bowling is less efficient , Most teams can produce a couple of tolerably in.seful openers who show the proper control of bodsJ p swing and looseness of shoulder. But the chang! U bowlers are liable to "put" the ball down the i iwicket, with the result that longhops and full j(pitches are frequent and the polyhopper not uttfVfliown. The batting suffers from a slowness in h jotwork, which must be the result of corrigible j ignorance* To state the truth bluntly, these gl iris cannot as yet play even moderately well on 1 the off-side. By.contrast thenhitting to leg i« amazingly powerful and accurate. . . . Cricketi! is the best of.all games for the elect, those pejj uliar people who have the love of it in their blir'tod. It seems hard that naturally gifted women 61 buld be reduced to playing lawn tennis and golf; for air and exercise during the summer months. ; Therefore it would be a beneficent and socially -useful move on the part of the M.C.C. to offer to! the Women's Cricket Association the use of the j practice ground at Lord's on a day towards the . <«id,of a season, this year, next yvar, some time,, not never.