CRICKET Fine Start By N.Z. Against Australia

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28216, 2 March 1957, Page 12

CRICKET Fine Start By N.Z. Against Australia

New Zealand exceeded the expectations of all but its most sanguine supporters when it dismissed Australia for 216 on the first day of the unofficial test at Lancaster Park yesterday, and then scored 79 for one wicket by the close of play.

The score-sheet gives no hint of the intense struggle waged all day. There were no flashing hundreds, no demoniacal bowlers razing the stumps, no fleet fieldsmen executing swallow dives to snatch incredible catches: but even without any such finery, it was a day’s play of good, strong texture. As it stands now, it was New Zealand’s day, but the home team’s present promising position was not won before an unusual number of advances and retreats had been made. The Australian bowling at the end of the day proclaimed clearly that New Zealand still has a very long way to go.

The attendance was about 5000, and the gate receipts £1202.

The teams are:— Australia: L D. Craig (captain), R. N. Harvey. P. Burge, L. Favell. W. Watson,' R. Benaud. L. Kline. R. Gaunt, I. Meckiff, B. Jarman and R. Simpson, with J, Martin twelfth man. New Zealand: J. R. Reid (captain), H. B. Cave. B. Sutcliffe. G. O. Rabone, L. S. M. Miller, M. E. Chapple, A. R. Mac Gibbon, J. C. Alabaster, S. C. Guillen, R. W. Blair and D. D. Taylor, with J. W. D’Arcy twelfth man. There were two periods during the Australian innings when the batsmen were iji command. The first was while Harvey and Favell were scoring 45 for the second wicket, and their mastery was certainly challenged; the second was when Simpson and Jarman added 60 for the seventh wicket. There was another partnership of some substance, Kline and Gaunt quickly adding 32 for the last wicket, but they could not be considered in charge: most of their runs came from a diverting mixture of sound strokes, energetic slashes, and horrid snicks. The achievements of the NewZealand team in the field were largely those of Cave and Alabaster. who restated the bowling principle of accuracy in length and direction. There seemed to be no life in the pitch at all, until the Australians began to bowl on it, but Cave and Alabaster, contrasts in outward design but as one in their insistent length, pinned the batsmen down and snipped them off.

For both, there were memorable moments. Cave’s would undoubtedly be the ball with which he bowled Craig. It was the almost unplayable ball, because it pitched somewhere about middle and leg and w’hipped across to hit the top of the off stump—the sort of ball bowled mainly in dreams. Dismissal of Benaud For Alabaster, there must have been extreme satisfaction in the dismissal of Benaud, clearly. Australia’s most formidable batsman. The fieldsmen shared the credit for this. Benaud played five balls of an over from Alabaster, then a maiden over, then four more balls. Most of these 15 balls were driven with tremendous power, but not one got through the field, and in. his effort to break the ring Benaud went further and further from his ground and hit harder and harder. The sixteenth time, he went down the pitch again, but this time could not cover the ball and his momentary hesitation was fatal.

If New Zealand scored faster in the last 85 minutes than the Australians had scored, it could not be said that the batsmen were in charge. The Australian fast bowlers, Gaunt and Meckiff, had to pitch a little short to make the ball get up, but they bowled with more vigour and devil than the New Zealand opening pair. Then Benaud began to spin the ball sharply. The New Zealand innings so far has had a prosperous voyage, but it has kept on course largely through chance. Good Start The match began in very nearly ideal conditions, and the running out of Watson by Sutcliffe gave New Zealand a wonderful start. Harvey and Favell took an hour to score their 45, but as they went on the certainty of their strokes increased. Har.vey made some splendid shots, notably a square drive for four off Cave, and Favell cut the same bowler with easy impudence, also for four. Alabaster did not begin particularly well, but he soon had a wicket. Harvey hit a loose ball very hard to Chapple, fielding fairly close at square leg. and the fieldsman held the catch. Then Favell was bowled by Cave. Apparently he thought the ball pitched outside the leg stump, and that a big hit with the inswing was a justifiable risk. In the event, the ball pitched on the leg' stump and went straight through. Craig Bowled Not long after this, Craig was the victim of Cave’s best ball, and at 77 Burge lost his wicket to Rabone. It looked a rash stroke, but there was evidence that New Zealand earned the wicket. Reid had closed the gap wide of midon Burge likes to use, demanding a squarer hit if runs were being sought. That was where Burge tried to send the ball, but it was a shorter, quicker one which went straight through. Burge was out 10 minutes before lunch, and the players came in with Australia an incredible 83 for five wickets, and Simpson having only a single to show for 20 balls from Cave, at least half a dozen of which beat him completely. After lunch. Benaud attacked Mac Gibbon like a boxer who realises he has to carry the fight to his opponent. It was a calculated assault from a bat which was taken straight down the line. In defence. Benaud was calm and correct, but he hit with almost primitive power when looking for runs. He took 18 of the 19 which came from two overs by MacGibbon. whose hasty removal was the first New Zealand retreat of the day. Simpson, square-driving Cave for 4 most handsomely, showed his innings was growing from uncertain adolescence, but his task was made Harder when he lost Benaud. That was at 115. and New Zealand had reasonable grounds to suppose a final breakthrough was more than a possibility. At this crisis Jarman arrived.

and he saw it through like a good Australian. Jaunty beneath his huge bat, unorthodox, sometimes most fallible, often horizontal in regaining his crease after unwarranted advances down the pitch, he somehow exuded Australian confidence. No matter how hasty or ill-assembled his defences were on occasions, he gave the appearance of regarding all the bowling merely as powder for his shots. His most convincing stroke was his off-drive. Simpson, reaching full stature, twice cut Blair for 4’s beautifully, the over yielding 11, and then Alabaster, from his own bowling, dropped Jarman, not a very difficut catch. It seemed that New Zealand’s glistening fish was about to get away when at 158 Guillen missed a difficult stumping chance given by Simpson off Alabaster, but at 175 Simpson was leg before wicket to Mac Gibbon. The partnership had added 60 in 70 minutes, and Simpson had batted 139 minutes in all. Catch Missed

Then Jarman, on 26, hit Cave very high and square. Miller, coming in from backward point, appeared to have every chance of making the catch, but Guillen, with rather more energy and enthusiasm than judgment, flew after the ball, and his headlong dive was all. but intercepted by Miller’s steady advance. It was

little wonder the catch was missed. However, Meckiff was well taken by Cave just before tea, and Rabone picked up Jarman in the slips after the interval.. After that Gaunt and Kline made their 32 in 20 minutes. Cave’s Bowling Cave won great admiration for his stout-hearted bowling. He wheeled down over after over, with the loose balls very few and far between. He bowled at times to an on-side field of seven men, but with the pace bowlers almost innocuous, and Alabaster more like; a quartermaster than a commando, his methods were entirely defensible. Even with the old ball, he swung a little and late, almost until the end. Once the Australian defence • had been breached. Cave prevented the gap being closed, with typical devotion to duty. He worried Simpson particularly; of 45 balls he bowled to Simpson, only five yielded runs.

Alabaster was a success. He, too, lacks much bowling glamour, but he dropped the ball, as a rule, where he wanted it to go, and in his first afternoon spell of 15 overs he conceded only 23 runs while taking a wicket and earning two others. Rabone had little bowling, and might have been used more, remembering the pace bowlers’ lack of penetration—but it would be a carping critic who faulted Reid yesterday, for all his changes had logic, and it was the pattern of play as it developed which kept Rabone in a role as inconspicuous as the butler in the domestic drama. Mac Gibbon’s first spell was his best, and Blair bowled steadily for a time, but neither could find any encouragement in the turf. The fielding of Taylor, Sutcliffe, and Reid, in particular, was excellent, and it was only towards the end of the innings, when runs were thrown away, that the fielding of the team as a whole fell from grace. New Zealand Batting

The New Zealand innings began with an encouraging flow of runs, for with the close-set field anything which got through off the fast bowlers was a likely 4. There was great interest in Meckiff, the left-hander with an action which may be no more than questionable. He is genuinely fast, and from not far short of a length he made the ball fly viciously. Inevitably, there were comparisons between his speed and that of others of the times. New Zealand batsmen with experience in recent test cricket incline to the view that Meckiff has about the pace of England’s Statham, but is not as fast as Tyson or South Africa’s Adcock. Rabone played Meckiff admirably. When the ball flew at him, he no more than inclined his head, like a diplomat aware of an adversary’s earnest argument, but quite unconvinced by it. Miller was just as staunch. He was hit repeatedly, but took the blows stoically. After Rabone had gone at 46 —scored in even time—Sutclifle came in. There was a stroke or two as reminders of his batting glories, but he was most uncomfortable. That he survived, to start another day, was a gain for New Zealand. A lesser player would have got out. Indeed, Sutcliffe was dropped once, by Benaud off his own bowling, and he played other strokes which could have cost him his wicket. Miller, too, flirted with the ball outside his off stump, but also played some good shots, including a drive for 4 to extra cover off Meckiff. The last few minutes were worrying ones for batsmen end partisan spectators, for Gaunt bowled with determination and well, and so did Benaud. The loss of another wicket would have been heavy defeat, but these two left New Zealand m a position from which they could go, if their cricket today is as full of character as it was yesterday, much further ahead. The umpires are Messrs W J G^ y ,? ne iota g°> a nd L- G. Clark • Wellington). Scores:— AUSTRALIA First Innings L. Favell. b Cave .. ..23 W. Watson, run out .. ’’ q R. N. Harvey, c Chapple, b Ala- i baster .. ~ .. 29

I. D. Craig, b Cave .. • ~ 3 P. Burge, b Rabone .. .. 17 R. Simpson, lbw, b Mac Gibbon 47 R. R. Benaud, b Alabaster ~ 28 B. Jarman, c Rabone, b Cave .. 33 I. Meckiff, c and b Cave .. 0 L. Kline, c Guillen, b Blair .. 13 R. Gaunt, not out .. .. 19 Extras (leg byes 3, no-ball 1) 4 Total .. .. .. 216 Fall ol wickets: one for 7 (Watson), two for 52 (Harvey), three lor 52 (Favell), four for 65 (Craig), five for 77 (Burge), six for 115 (Benaud), seven for 175 (Simpson), eight for 178 (Meckiff), nine for 184 I Jarman), 10 Cor 216 (Kline). Bowling

Mac Gibbon bowled two no-balls and Blair one. NEW ZEALAND First Innings L. S. M. Miller, not out .. 35 G. O. Rabone, lbw, b Benaud .. 22 B. Sutcliffe, not out .. .. 9 Extras (byes 4, leg byes 7, no-balls 2) .. ..13 Total for one wicket .. 79 Fall of wicket: one for 46 (Rabone).

Hawke Cup.—Waikato had the better of the play on the first day of the Hawke Cup cricket match, which began against Manawatu in brilliant sunshine yesterday. Manawatu was dismissed for 175, and at close of play Waikato was 27 behind and had nine wickets standing. D. B. Clarke took five Manawatu wickets for 49. .Waikato's opening partnership by E. |C. Petrie and J. K. Everest yielded [140.—(P.A.)

O. M. R. W. R. W. Blair .. 12.5 0 52 1 H. B. Cave .. 27 10 57 4 A. R. MacGibbon 13 1 45 1 J. C. Alabaster .. 26 9 48 2 G. O. Rabone ..7 3 10 1

Bowling O. M. R. W I. Meckiff ..7 3 25 0 R. Gaunt .. 10 2 31 0 ~R. Benaud .. 6 2 10 1 Gaunt bowled three no-balls.