Between Overs

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30631, 23 December 1964, Page 11

Between Overs

Six members of the Canterbury Brabin tournament team took part in the match—Old Collegians-Ric-carton—C. L. Broad, D. Stead, R. W. Thomas (Riccarton), M. G. Lester, R. C. Bromley, S. J. Hunt (Old Collegians). This was an astonishing situation, for of the other six players, four were still with their school teams and two are from country districts. * * » The remarkable diving catch with which B. F. Hastings dismissed his opposing captain, B. A. Salt, in the main match at Hagley on Saturday gave the West Christchurch-Univer-sity off-spinner, P. A. Sharp, his ninety-ninth wicket in Christchurch senior cricket. Sharp has done much in a brief period. He came to Christchurch for three matches at the end of the 1962-63 season, and took 10 wickets. But last summer he had 60, and already this season his tally is 29. * * *

The most encouraging feature of Saturday’s senior cricket was the resolution shown by two teams which have often lacked it—Old Collegians and East Christchurch-Shirley. Both sides were badly placed after the first innings, but both fought back determinedly and well. Old Collegians, in fact, nearly converted a highly unpromising position against Riccarton into victory; and East-Shirley, if beaten just before the close of play, gave its best batting display for a long time. * * *

After two seasons of very spasmodic success, S. R. Home (East Christ-churoh-Shirley) has discovered a rich vein of runs. He has been the most consistent factor in EastShirley’s recent improved batting performances and his last five scores have been 49, 20 (in a total of

48), 51, and 62 and 46 against High School Old Boys. An experienced player who had much success in Dunedin until he came to Christchurch about three years ago, Home has scored well over 3000 runs in senior cricket. A captain of the Otago Braibin tournament team just after he left school, Home was a promising wicket-keeper in his youth hut forsook this when he joined G. H. Mills’ club, Kaikorai. When he resumed wicketkeeping this season, it was for the first time in 13 years.

* * *

QRICKET has some '■ y warming qualities, and not the least of them is the loyalty it engenders among its followers. And if it were possible to pick a New Zealand team from tion to the game has been unswerving, first man in could very well be Mr Jim Patterson of Chrsitchurch, who is among the most regular spectators at Hagley Oval, and has been a consistent follower of Canterbury cricket for some 57 years.

There was one period of 40 years in which Mr Patterson did not miss a Plunket Shield match to Christchurch, except to one season, when he visited Australia—to see the test matches there. And in the last 55 years, he has failed to see Canterbury play only half a dozen times; often he has gone to Dunedin or Wellington to watch the matdies. The reason for this intense love of cricket? He does not really know. But the answer may be in the fact that when he was a small boy he lived next door to John Wheatley, a Canterbury captain, and a fine man, who lived to be 102 and whose birthday, to his last years, regularly demanded the presence of Canterbury cricket’s Debrett’s. Jim Patterson remembers vividly the afterschool hours of his schoolboy summer terms. When he came home, Wheatley would be to his garden. Young Patterson would look over the fence,- hopefully, while Wheatley pretended to take no notice. But when his kindly nature prevented him teasing the boy any longer, he would turn and ask him if he would “like a few.” Jim Patterson always did. And it was Wheatley who offered him some sound advice on how to play spin bowling. “Always act on the first impulse” he used to say.

When Jim Patterson was only 13, he enjoyed cricket in circumstances which still mystify him. In the neighbourhood lived a Mr Murray, father of H. St. A. Murray, the great hurdler. And he was asked to practise there, a mere boy, with some of Canterbury’s greatest—Dan Reese, Syd. Orchard, the Ridley brothers. Reese, Jim Patterson proclaims, was the finest hitter of the ball on the cover drive he ever saw.

There were the famous Ridleys—Archie, a great forcing bat; Cliff, tall and thin, one of the greatest late cutters; Reg, a bowler of astonishing accuracy, in the J. R. Read mould. Jim Patterson to this day can not recall how he was asked, how the practises were organised, and by whom.

By the time he was 18, Jim Patterson was playing senior cricket for Linwood, and with him were Reg. Read and Arthur Thomas, two of the best-known Canterbury players of years gone by. Illness interrupted and hindered Jim Patterson’s career, but the memories are vivid. He was playing in the match in which R. C. Blunt hit E. R. Caygill for seven sixes in an eight-ball over at Hagley Oval. He saw Reese hit the great D. J. Mcßeath over the trees on the same ground. And he recalls the famous remark of C. W. Allard, a muchrespected and popular schoolteacher, who, on being selected for Canterbury, made two ducks and dropped a catch. Allard, leaving Hagley, saw a small boy waiting to open the gate for him. He said he would prefer to crawl under the fence. Some of the memories are particularly sharp. One of them is of A. E. Relf, the great Sussex allrounder, who played for Auckland against Canterbury in 1907-08, the first of all Plunket Shield matches. Relf made 157 against Patterson’s heroes, and how he hated the man, at the time. He saw Hobbs and Sutcliffe, and much admired their running between the wickets. But he says there has never, to his mind, been a better exhibition of running than that offered by F. T. Badcock and K. C. James for Wellington in a game against Canterbury in the 1920’5. How about Hadlee and Page in their memorable double-century opening partnership? he was asked. They would be second, he says. The best New Zealand batsman he has seen? C. S. Dempster. The best bowler? J. Cowie. “I saw S. T. Callaway, probably the greatest bowler ever to play in New Zealand. But I was only a boy.” Of fieldsmen, he selected H. A. Bishop, of Canterbury, C. C. Dacre, of Auckland, and B. Sutcliffe, who belonged to everybody. As a wicket-keeper, he chose C. Boxshall, the Canterbury man with the white moustache and the bookshop in Cathedral square. Boxshall, he said, should be put above everyone.

Jim Patterson loves, like most cricketers, to talk about the great players of the past. But he is a firm admirer of the modern generation too. Not for him the “it isn’t what it was” philosophy. For himself, he makes only one claim, rather tentatively. He saw Bradman make his first test century, in 192829; he thinks perhaps he is the only New Zealander alive who was at the match.

While there are Jim Pattersons, there should always be cricket on Saturdays at Hagley. And while there is cricket at Hagley, it seems only right to suggest that there should always be Jim Patterson.