Between Overs

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28802, 24 January 1959, Page 5

Between Overs

G. N. Gearry’s 51 not out for ! West Christchurch-University gave ' him a match average of 179. In ; his usual hard hitting style, Gearry scored 128 in the first innings of ! the match. He has been a con- ! sistently useful scorer in the last ; few weeks, and the speed at which ■ he is able to make runs was ably ! shown in the last match. Gearry ; made his 128 in 147 minutes, and ; then last Saturday made his 51 in • 45 minutes. • Although he nas missed two matches and part of another, D. J. Reid has enjoyed outstanding success with his left-arm swing bowling for Old Boys. His match analyses have been • three for 40, two for 2, eight for 55, one for 49, and seven for 57—a total of i 21 wickets, at an average of 9.2. This puts him just behind A. G. . Duckmanton, who in two matches for Lancaster Park has taken 12 wickets for 110. With six two-day games and a one-day match, the first round of the senior competition has been completed. Of the 28 matches played so far, only two have been won outright, both by Lancaster Park, which now has a very substantial lead of 15 points from Old Boys and St. Albans. In the next two rounds these are the teams Lancaster Park will play; success in either one would almost assure Lancaster Park of winning the championship. ’ lIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM

If the Canterbury batsman, John Guy, was a slow scorer in the Plunket Shield series he was also steady and continued his run of useful Plunket Shield scores with a confident 95 for Sydenham i n 61ub cricket on Saturday. Guy hit 11 bound* aries in his innings, which lasted 137 minutes, and scored well with neat cuts and sound drives. He averaged 29.8 for the Plunket Shield series, including 62 against Otago, 45 against Wellington. 57 against Central Districts, 23 against Northern Districts, and 32 against Auckland. • The 88 players who took part in the first round of the senior competition are now almost lost in the crowd. Senior status has since been attained by another 37 players, a total of 125 for the season so far. West ChristchurchUniversity, which loses a good many players during the holiday period, has been most liberal of the clubs, with 21 seniors. Old Boys have used 17 players, and two of the top teams, Lancaster Park and St. Albans, with 14 each, have used fewest players.

Some much-needed solidity has been given to the West Cnrist-church-tlniversity batting by the former New Zealand hockey captain, C. V. Walter, who has been playing in the team in recent matches. Walter was a most successful batsman for Old Collegians in senior matches before the war. and he appeared for Lancaster Park, also in the senior grade, in the late 1940’5. In form, he was a very attractive and free-scoring batsman, and many thought that he should have been chosen for the Canterbury side more often than he was. In recent years he has played for University in the President’s grade. His University team won this grade in 1954-55 and 1955-56.

B. A. Haworth now has a lead of more than 100 runs over the others in the senior competition. He has an aggregate of 479. Next are R. T. Hunt 377, G. N. Gearry 342, W. A. Hadlee 311, B. Ellis 242, G. D. Alabaster 241, J. W. D’Arcy 240, T. B. Burtt 237, G. T. Dowling 235, and S. C. Guillen 231. The best bowling aggregates are those of P. A. Small 32, T. Jones 28, J. W. Kiddey 24, Alabaster 23, Guillen and D. J. Reid 21, J. Harliwich and B. A. Bolton 19, J. B. Park and C. Smart 17.