BRADMAN AT BAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 136, 11 June 1938, Page 8

BRADMAN AT BAY.

English cricket prestige has been rehabilitated by the play on the opening day of the first Test match at Nottingham, and Bradman is at bay. A score of 422 runs for four wickets by England is a mighty problem for the Australian skipper, especially with thunder-clouds about and the possibility of a rain-damaged pitch when tho Australians get their turn with the bat. The batting of Barnett, Hutton, Paynter and Compton has given the English morale the fillip it so badly needed, and for this match at least the talk of Australia's invincibility has been silenced. The feat of making 422 runs in one day's play in a Test match on an English wicket induces several reflections from a cricket point of view. Last time the Australians were in England the highest total made by an English team on the first day of a Test was* 340 runs, while the record second-wicket stand by Ponsford and Bradman enabled Australia to put on 475 runs for the first day of the final Test. Comparisons with yesterday's play tell their own tale. How the runs were made by the two opeming batsmen, Barnett and Hutton, seems to indicate that there is a flaw in Australia's emphatic reliance on spin bowling. The manner in which Barnett, and his partner to a lesser extent, discriminated in constant respect for O'Reilly and intervals of disrespect for FleetwoodSniith and Ward, indicated that possibly there was a flaw in Bradman's decision to include both the latter bowlers and to leave out of the team Waite and White, either of whom would certainly have the attack greater variety, and maybe have added to it a sting which was lacking on the good wieket. Such extra sting seems necessary to support the McCormickO'Eeilly lead. However that may be, and whatever the result of »he match, England's showing yesterday has given a zest to the forthcoming T«tt eerie* which is refreshing.