" TERRIBLE!"

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 45, 23 February 1937, Page 9

" TERRIBLE !"

N.Z. FIELDING.

PAGE'S CRITICISM.

ATMS TO IMPROVE

(By Telegraph.—Special to "Star.")

DUNEDIN, this dav

M. L. Page, captain of the 1937 Xew Zealand cricket team for England, speaking at the diamond jubilee dinner of the Otago Cricket Association, said:

"Th» team is going away with the critics shouting and crying, and with the selectore scratching their heads over the problems of bowlere. Apart from this lack, some of the greatest sides in the world could be chosen, from New Zealand cricketers."

New Zealand's first five batsmen were the equal of those in any other part of the world, with the exception of Bradman, McCafoe, Leykind and Hammond.

"Our fielding is terrible! Not so much on the ground, as in the air. My aim is to make this team a really good fielding eide."

In connection with the selection of the New Zealand cricket team for England, it is learned that the selectors, now at Dunedin, have been instructed to choose 14 players, the selection to include one wicketkeeper.

This means that the idea of sending an extra man has not, as yet, been entertained, but it is quite open for the selectors to make a recommendation, if they eo desire, in submitting the names to the Xew Zealand Cricket Council. Actually, the selection committee has been limited, to the picking of 13 players, M. L. Page having been appointed captain by the council befortj the selectors named their "certainties."

It is known that the question of wicketkeeping has given some concern, there being a feeling that two wicketkeepers (leaving manager T. C. Lowry out of consideration, he having a big enough job as it is) should be eent.

The question of setting the side up as well as possible in the matter of bowling will loom large in the selectors' discussions about filling the remaining six places, after the Plunket Shield contest at Dunedin to-dav.

The men already chosen, besides the captain, are: J. L. Kerr, who has scored only 74 run* in five innings in this year's Shield contests, W. A. Hadlee and A. W. Roberts (Canterbury), D. A. R. Moloney (Wellington), H. G. Vivian, W. M. Wallace and W. N". Carson (Auckland).