Shepherd Surprise Omission From Aust. Tour Team

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30365, 14 February 1964, Page 6

Shepherd Surprise Omission From Aust. Tour Team

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, February 13. The West Australian left-hand batsman, B. Shepherd, is the surprise omission from the 17-man Australian cricket team to tour England this year.

Shepherd was twelvth man in the first test and a member of the Australian team in the remaining four tests in the series which finished yesterday against South Africa.

| The 26-year-bld Victorian batsman, J. Potter, has beaten Shepherd for a place.

The Australian Board of Control will name the captain, and the three tour selectors in the next few days. Apart from Shepherd’s omission, the touring line-up conforms to general expectations. The players selected are: 8., C. Booth, P. Burge, A. Connolly, R. Cowper, G. Corling, W. A. Grout, N. Hawke, B. Jarman, W. MLawry, J. Martin, G. D. McKenzie, N. C. O’Neill, J. Potter, I. Redpath, R. Sellers, R. B. Simpson, T. Velvets.

The selectors have blended some young material with seasoned members of the test Xi’s. The South Australian leg-spin bowler, 22-year-old Sellers, led the wicket-takers with 44 victims in first-class cricket this season. Martin, the 32-year-old New South Wales left-hander, was considered an unlucky omission on the last Australian tour to England, in 1961.

There are only four players in the touring party who have not played test cricket —Potter, Sellers, Cowper, and the New South Wales fastmedium bowler, Corling. Four pace bowlers—McKenzie, Connolly, Hawke, and Corling—have been included, and there is variety

in spin, with Veivers and Cowper bowling off-breaks, Sellers and Simpson legbreaks and Martin left-hand unorthodox breaksEight members of Benaud’s successful 1961 team are to tour again. They are Simpson, the likely captain, Booth, Burge, Grout, Jarman, Lawry, McKenzie, and O’Neill. The opening batsmen, Simpson and Lawry, are reinforced with the 22-year-old stylish Victorian, Redpath, who made 97 in his. test debut against South Africa recently.

The touring team will play matches in Hobert, Launceston and Perth before it departs from Fremantle aboard the liner Orcades on April 9.

Me®t. ah Blacks.—The Duke of Edinburgh will meet the New Zealand Rugby touring team at Buckingham Palace next Monday, a Buckingham Palace statement said on Thursday.— (P,A.) German Oarsmen.—Ratzeburg University, of Germany, world champion eight-oar rowing crew, may compete in New Zealand and Australia immediately after the Tokyo Olympic Games later this year, the chairman of the New Zealand Amateur Rowing Association (Mr L. E. Brooker) said in Wellington on Thursday.—(P.A.)