WOMEN'S CRICKET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 56, 7 March 1934, Page 16

WOMEN'S CRICKET.

AUSTRALIAN STANDARD.

COMMENDED BY MAI LEY. ENGLISH CRITICISM RESENTED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, March 2. There are a large number of women who play cricket here; many of them have reached a very high degree of excellence ill the game, and most of them are quite as enthusiastic about it as the men. As a natural consequence great indignation has been expressed in Sydney—and I have no doubt in other cricketing centres —at the derision which the London "Evening Standard" has poured upon the proposal for women's Test matches. The question is not whether women's teams representing England and Australia-should play "home and home" matches. The "Evening Standard" would generously allow them to do this, so long as they do not call the games "Tests." That title, it seems, has been sanctified for all time for the sole use of men, and to the "Evening Standard" it would be nothing less than sacrilege for women to encroach thus far upon men's preserves. Of course, the "Evening Standard" does not put it in that way. Its excuse for its prejudice against women's Test matches is that they "must be a parody on the great game." One can only assume, —to explain this unwarranted impertinence— that the "Evening Standard" man has never seen women playing cricket seriously. I presume that they play in England at least as well as in Australia, and certainly they have reached a high pitch of efficiency here. A week 'hgo a women's cricket tournament was held in Sydney, the competing teams representing Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales, and, judged by any masculine standard, the play was of a very high order. The bowling, the wiclcet-keeping and the iielding were in most cases excellent, and the batting, though comparatively slow, was surprisingly sound. Of course, the bowling was all over-arm. and some of it, in accuracy and control of pitch and break would have put many of our masculine cracks to shame.

Arthur Mailey, who is certainly a competent judge of the game, commented very favourably both on the fielding and the bowling. He mentioned particularly the New South Wales girl who bowls quite as fast as a medium-paced man, and who kept up her pace and direction for some time with great success. Two Victorian bowlers whom I watched were exceptionally good. One, a slow right-hander, spun the ball clean across the wicket, keeping remarkably straight; the other, a slow left-hander, had a beautiful break both ways, kept a fine length, and in the second New South Wales innings got four wickets for one run. The fielding and catching in most eases would have been highly creditable in a men's match. I saw one girl hold a ball on the boundary—a big hit, off a long hop, skied to leg—in a manner that would have won prolonged applause in a first grade match at the Sydney Cricket ground; and Arthur Mailey, in his report, makes special mention of a catch in the slips—a hard snick, taken left hand only two inches from the ground.

The impression produced by these matches on Mailey's mind was that "it was great cricket." and he particularly complimented the players on their keenness and their strenuous efforts in the field and with the ball. The people here who have seen cricket played like this will not bo inclined to attach any importance to the unworthy gibes of the "Evening Standard." No doubt to British conservatives it is a duty as well as a pleasure to depreciate women's cricket because it is not sufficiently feminine, but opinions of that kind are happily obsolete here.