DISAPPOINTING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 46, 24 February 1937, Page 5

DISAPPOINTING.

CRICKET CHOICE.

LAST SIX PLACES.

GAMBLE ON THE ATTACK. It can be said safely that the personnel of the Xew Zealand cricket team to tour England, as announced in this issue, has created a deal of surprise and disappointment. One prominent old player of Auckland, seeing the selection, declared at once that four of the chosen players would not get a place in the Auckland representative team. Dunning. Griffiths, Donnelly and Kerr were the players he named. He argued that Kerr's form tliU season, plus a question of failing eyesight, should have disqualified the Canterbury man. He looked on Dunning as an old man in cricket, not fo good a bowler as A. M. Matherson, of Auckland, and ''not half as good a man"' as an all-rounder. Tie considered (iriflitlis' displays in this year's representative cricket a< without merit, and Donnelly as a player who had not yet demonstrated fully that he was in interprovincia 1 class. Tn his opinion Matheson and Whitelaw. of Auckland. Kline*, of Otago. and (ialliclian. of Manawatu, would have been better selections. This criticism ju~t about sums tip the general view, though s'ime nre of opinion that l'arsloe, the Wellington fast bowler, and Matheson. of Auckland, were the two .nost unlucky candidates. Tt has to be remembered that the selectors' main problem was getting an adequate variety and quality in attack, combined with the declared policy of favouring young ami improving players of desirable character for such a tour. Obviously restrictions tied the selectors' hands. They got partly 011 the way to the solution with Weir and Dunning (thoii'rh most critics would have preferred Weir anil Matheson at this stage}, and then had to have a slow spin bowler and a sharp fieldsman, both young. It looks as if at this stage they gambled on Griffiths arrd Donnelly. It .night just as easily have been La tuason. of Wellington, and Sliarpe. of Canterbury, and they might have been better selections. Tf a Xew Zealand team were selected to play the M.«'.C. in Xew Zealand this week it is almost a certainty that 1/iiinason would be preferred to Kerr, and that Whitelaw. Matheson. T'arsloe and. perhaps. Sliarpe would go down as emergencies before Griffiths, Donnelly a'id Dunning.