AUCKLAND'S FEAT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 38, 15 February 1943, Page 5

AUCKLAND'S FEAT

A GREAT RECOVERY

HOOK FORCES THE PACE

Despite a first innings rout when the Dominion champion bowler, T. L. Pritchard, took all ten wickets for 39 runs, Northern Military District (Auckland) on Saturday won the return match against Central Military District (Wellington) by two wickets. The contest took place at the Basin Reserve, which maintained its reputation for exciting finishes in two-day representative cricket. In January, 1936, Wellington heat E. R. T. Holmes' M.C.C. XI. by 14 runs, although three days had been allocated to the fixture. Only a week later the winning side beat Canterbury by a couple of runs in a scheduled fourday Plunket Shield engagement. Twenty-eight wickets had fallen on Friday, Wellington scoring 136 and 196 for eight, while Auckland had been dismissed for 77 after Skipper G. L. Weir had generously given the home team first use of the pitch. Wellington's tail wagged so strongly that, when the last man fell at 11.40 a.m., the Aucklanders had been set the impressive total of 314 to make for victory. In scoring the required number of runs Auckland created a New Zealand record for a two-day match, and the performance is probably unparalleled in the history of first-class cricket in the world. Historic Fourth Innings Before the last war some remarkable batting by H. B. Lusk (now headmaster of King's College), a century, and Dan Reese enabled Canterbury to run up 280 for four wickets, and so recover the Plunket Shield, which Auckland had taken at Hagley Park in the initial challenge match in mid-December, 1907. Just after the war Canterbury made 303 for three wickets to beat Wellington badly. Wellington, as in the game at the Basin Reserve last Saturday, had had a substantial first innings lead. These -were three-day engagements. Canterbury excelled them in a four-day game at Lancaster Park at Christmas, 1930, when, without a century being hit, the Southerners actually beat Auckland by four wickets, although set the huge task of making 473 in the fourth innings. At Eden Park in February, 1937, Auckland got 347 to beat Wellington by three wickets. This also was a four-day contest. In the Anglo-Australian Test series, which began on March 15, 1877, over 300 to win had never been scored until Australia tallied 315 for four wickets at Adelaide in January, 1902. This engagement did not terminate until the sixth day, and is famous otherwise because Clem Hill made 98 and 97, following 99 in his preceding innings at Melbourne. "Marathon" at Durban That was a mere bagatelle to the English classic of March, 1939, in amassing 654 for five • wickets at Durban, after South Africa had set 686 as the number required to •win. England no doubt would have succeeded had not, on the night of the tenth playing day of this "marathon," the Englishmen been compelled to leave by train for Capetown to catch the liner for -Home. These few statistics prove how difficult it is, in the main, to get 300 or over to win. That Weir and his men should have succeeded in a two-day match, after the demoralising effect of Tom Pritchard's lone-handed attack on Friday (when he hit the stumps nine times and got A. J. Postles leg before), hall-marks the Northern Army's victory as the most remarkable in this country's cricket annalsi Northern's Champions Len Partridge (six for 31) was Auckland's hero on Friday, and Glen Hook (96) earned the honours on Saturday after Alf Postles (55) had taken a great deal of sting out of the attack before falling, lbw for the second time in the game. Hook, a former Auckland Plunket Shield player, eschewed defence, and even Pritchard held no terrors for him. Besides pulling R. J. Coupland for six over the square leg boundary, he hit nine fours. His partnership with Weir added 57 in 21 minutes. Praise is also due to Weir (two for 30 and five for 74), and to J. W. Carroll, the ex-Poverty Bay cricketer and Auckland representative hockey forward. Not only did he ably keep wickets again, but his plucky unbeaten knock of 30 was the next best match-winning effort. Partridge (Dilworth Old Boys) and F. M. Andrews (University-Middlemore) made valuable contributions to the score sheet at a most critical stage. Andrews made the winning single. The complete scores of three innings •were published in Saturday's main papers and the final in the Sports Edition. The figures of the fourth innings are given below:— WELLINGTON First innings 136 Second innings 254 AUCKLAND First innings ' 11 Second Innings S. G. Haliday, c Pritchard, b Lamason ... la A. J. Postles, lbw, b Coupland 55 D. D. Taylor, c Barker, b Pritchard 0 G. G. McKenzie, c O'Brien, b Lamason ... 11 L. C. Archer, lbw, b Brooker 24 G. H. Hook, c and b Pritchard 96 G. L. Weir, lbw, b Lamason 25 J. W. Carroll, not out 38 L. E. Partridge, b Lamason 17 F. M. Andrews, not out 21 Extras — « Total' for eight wickets 314 Bowling.—J. R. Lamason four for 86, T. L. Pritchard two for 87, S. A. Brooker one for 36. B. J. Coupland one for 46, M. A. O'Brien none for 3, B. B. S. Chadwick none for 9, H. H. Whiting none for 25. W J. Brown was the remaining player for Auckland for which the 12th man was H. B. Jones.