32 YEARS OF CRICKET

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27303, 20 March 1954, Page 4

32 YEARS OF CRICKET

Jack Jacobs To Retire Today

REPRESENTATIVE AND CLUB RECORD

The pulling of stumps at St. Bede’s College today, in the second-grade B match between Riccarton and St. Bede’s College, will signify for Jack Jacobs the end of 32 years’ active association with cricket. Jacobs’s career on the cricket field can be said to have started at the Christchurch Boys’ High School in 1921, when as a new boy at the school he was placed in a lower grade side. In 1924 he was promoted to the first eleven, and he held this position in the 1925 team also. One of his strongest recollections of his school matches was of the 1925 match against Christ's College, when Gordon Innes and George Grose, two of the smallest cricketers he he ever played with, put on 50 runs in a ninth-wicket stand at a time when High School was “well in the cart.” When he left High School at the end of 1925, Jacobs became a member of the Old Boys’ Club, and played for its junioi A grade side. During this’period Of the season, he scored eight centuries, the highest of which was 172 against New Brighton in the final of the junior championship.' It was also during \this season that he played, as a member »f the Old Boys’ team, against an Auckland City and Suburban eleven. This match stands out

very vividly in his mind for the number of runs scored. In the two days of play about 1400 runs were scored, including a 300 not out by W. Henty, of Auckland. When Old Boys were promoted to the senior A grade the next year, he went up with the team. He remained with the club three seasons before transferring to the Riccarton Club, of which he has been a member ever since.

In the Riccarton Club, Jacobs began his association with some of Canterbury's best players of the times—Gilbert Stringer, Jack Powell, Stan Andrews, Albie Roberts, Len Fairburn, and Des Dunnett. He represented Canterbury regularly .from 1927 to 1931—the year m which Canterbury made 473 for six wickets to beat Auckland by four wickets. This 1931 team was a notable one, the other members being Jack Kerr. lan Hamilton, Albie Roberts, “Curly Page, Ron Talbot, lan Cromb, Bill Merritt. Steve Lester, Neil Dorreen, and Jim Burrows. Between 1931 and 1936 Jacobs dropped out of representative cricket, but he played in the Canterbury team wkich toured the North Island in the 1936-37 season.

Member of Services’ Team Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Jacobs was chosen to play in the New Zealand Services’ team which toured England. The team played 33 games in four months and a half, winning about 20 games and losing only two. Some of the members of this team were Ken James, Martin Donnelly, Alan Burgess, Roger Blunt, Stewart Dempster, Ted Badcock, Ru Morgan, Murray Sharp, Bill Vincent, and Fred B>erley. On his return to New Zealand Jacobs joined his s old club again, and continued to play for the senior side until the end of the 1950-51 season, when he retired after 25 years of senior cricket. His interest in the game was unflagging, however,. and he dropped to the club’s junior B grade side, which he has captained for three years. Jacobs has also done his share in administration. He was on the management committee of the Canterbury Cricket Association for three years in the 1830’s and for two years since the war. As well, he has endeavoured to coach many of the younger players—not in an official capacity, but as one whose main objective was to help younger players along the right road. Tenth-Wicket Stand Jacobs’s observation on his retirement from active.-cricket was that he had enjoyed every minute of his 32 years of the game, but there was one game which he considered the most enjoyable of them all. It was that between Riccarton and Lancaster Park, about five years ago. Lancaster Park, batting first, made 390—including a partnership of 300 between Murray Chapple and Ray Dowker. Riccarton, after having seven wickets down for about 180, needed about 200 runs to win, and when the ninth wicket fell for 290 it was still 100 runs behind. In the last wicket stand, Jacobs and D. Thomas, his partner, took the score to 438, to give Riccarton a 48-run lead. Jacobs’s score was an unbeaten 202. Now, at 45, Jacobs is turning his thought to umpiring. He thinks he will have a rest next season, but may umpire the fallowing season. ■Until the end of last season Jacobs was also a well-known Rugby referee. He played Rugby with the Old Boys' Club until 1934, and in 1929 was a member of the Old Boys’ team which won the Canterbury championship. While overseas he also refereed several of the Kiwi trial games.

He is a staunch advocate of brighter cricket, and he believes that it will result only from starting play in the afternoons. “When afternoon cricket was played, the runs were definitely scored faster, and if you compared the bowling figures for the season, you would find the aggregate wickets taken would be about the same by the leading bowlers, although there were not half the number of overs,” he said.