RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30587, 2 November 1964, Page 24

RANDOM REMINDER

ALMS, FOR THE LOVE OF CRICKET.

Cricket, "glorious, manly game,” seems likely very soon to be doing as much for body building as the shaping of the character. At a recent cricket conference in Christchurch, there was a move to abandon the familiar pattern of teams staying in hotels and flying here and there together for Plunket Shield matches, in favour of a scheme by which each individual would be given a lump sum and told to get on with it. Basically, the Idea was to save money by allowing the cricketer to batter at the doors of his relatives or friends. The army knows all about this, with its barbaric survival courses. Drop a chap somewhere in the great outdoors and tell him to find his way home. The new proposals could have a beneficial effect on the

cricketer, and give the writers something new to say. . . . Canterbury made an unhappy start to its Plunket Shield match with Auckland at Eden Park today. It very nearly, in fact, failed to start at all. At 11 a.m. three Canterbury players had reached the ground. R. C. Motz, who had only half an hour’s rest after hitch-hiking from Wellington throughout the night, was called on to keep one end going until 3.15 p.m., when he was relieved by J. T. Ward, selected originally as a wicket-keeper. Ward had been delayed when his bicycle broke down at Franklin. The other Canterbury opening bowler was the manager, Mr Pathfinder, whose effective performance was reduced by his two-hour immersion in a stream he had tried to crocs In the Waitakeres. Before the dose of play,

five more Canterbury men had reached the ground. One, staying at Epsom with an aunt, had simply overslept after jogging from Hamilton the previous day. Two more made a dramatic entrance on a tandem cycle. A fourth arrived with his cricket clothes in a bundle on the end of a stick, and he was subsequently reproved by his captain for his untidy appearance. The last man to get there before the close of play came on a donkey he had commandeered from a nearby seaside resort. At the end of the day, Auckland's score stood at 722 for one wicket. The batsman out was M. Probable, who accidently sat on his stumps while clearly upset at a suggestion from Mr Pathfinder that he should contribute to a collection to defray the costs of the Canterbury team's afternoon tea.