CRICKET “Appalling Summer Caused Team’s Misfortunes”

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28700, 25 September 1958, Page 6

CRICKET “Appalling Summer Caused Team’s Misfortunes”

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, September 24. An appalling summer, rather than an insufficient technique, was ■. the chief cause of the New Zealand cricket team’s misfortunes in England, according to Mr J. H. Phillipps, the manager, and J. R. Reid, the captain, on the return of the team to Auckland today. The team disintegrated rather more quickly than it was brought together six months ago. A brief welcome by Mr T. W. C. Tothill, president of the New Zealand Cricket Council, supplemented by greetings from a number of friends, preceded by only a short time the departure of players by plane and car to their homes. Neither Mr Phillipps nor Reid saw any need for New Zealand cricket to languish and die because of the misadventures of the tour. In 1949 the New Zealand team, captained by W. A. Hadlee, lost part of one day’s play because of rain, said Mr Phillipps. The 1958 team lost a third of its tour through the weather. On this alone, there was no basis for comparison between the tours. The 1958 team started off without experienced players of the calibre of W. M. Wallace and M. P. Donnelly, and. because of the appallingly wet season, the players simply had no chance to work themselves into form, he said. After one test the following county match .yielded only seven hours’ play. The next match yieldfcl onlyfour hours of. play. “If the summer had been dry, and the wickets had been hard, I concede that England would have well and truly beaten us in each of the five tests,” said Mr Phillipps. “But there is this to remember: England now fields one of her most powerful teams. What we suffered has been suffered in recent years by South Africa, Australia, and the West Indies.

‘,‘We were neither patronised nor pitied by English cricket folk. We were simply beaten, and that was that. Nor were all of the debits on our side. No team got 400 against us. On the plumb track we tered in a test, at Old TrafforJFwe reached almost 300 with a badlyinjured man in our ranks. “Our own attack, especially the medium-fast attack, reached a very high standard, which confounded all but the very best of the England batsmen.” Mr Phillipps .saw no cause for alarm or despondency about the results of the tour. His words were echoed by Reid. “This team was stronger than any of the counties except Surrey—and Surrey is an exceptional side,” said Reid. “It is some indication of the difficulties of the season that the England captain, P. B. H. May, was the only member of the Surrey team to top 1000 runs in county matches. Even M. C. Cowdrey, -a superb bat. failed to reach his 1000 for Kent.” The New Zealanders spent 174 hours, or 29 playing days of their tour, in their dressing rooms, Reid said. In 1949, on the hard, fast, and true wickets then encountered, a batsman dismissed while making a oarticular type of stroke could profit by determining not to play that type of stroke again.

"In this recent season resolutions of this sort did not do one any good whatsoever.” Reid said. “You could never be sure whether a ball was going to pon. flv, skid, or stand up and look at you. And, of course, the spinners, especially Laker and Lock, could make the ball move a tremendous distance.”

Reid offered the very highest praise of A. .R. Mac Gibbon as the outstanding player of the tour. "After our South African tour in 1953, we all said that Mac Gibbon was the best medium-paced bowler in the world,” Reid said. “No-one believed us, but he is."

Reid also warmly praised J. T. Sparling as the outstanding young player of the tour. J. W. D’Arcy had ample courage, but perhaps needed more attacking strokes. W. R. Playle at times batted extremely well, but the weight of responsibility upon him was perhaps unfairly heavy for a boy of 19. The New Zealand team had built and maintained a splendid teamspirit, Reid said. It had been beaten, and that was that. The team had faced difficulties, and had mastered them to the best of its ability.

The fact that the difficulties—specifically, the quality of the England team—had of recent years mastered other nations, including Australia, showed that talk of cricket in New Zealand as decadent, if not dead, was foolishly unnecessary. During the reception, J. A. Hayes, the Auckland fast bowler, was awarded the Winsor Cup for. his outstanding bowling during the last Plunket Shield season. L. S. M. Miller winner of the Redpath Cup for batting, was not able to receive his trophy, as he had already left for his home in New Plymouth.