West Coast Cricket Team Had Rewarding Season

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30710, 27 March 1965, Page 11

West Coast Cricket Team Had Rewarding Season

"VOT for many seasons has the West Coast representative cricket team had such a successful season.

The highlight has been the winning of the trophy donated by Mr R. C. Saunders, of Christchurch, for competition among the Canterbury minor associations. Until 1963-64, this trophy was competed for on an elimination basis each season between South Canterbury, Mid-Canterbury, Buller and West Coast. For the last two seasons, however, the trophy has been competed for on the Plunket Shield system—each team playing the other, with the points scoring being the same as for the Plunket Shield.

When the North Canterbury Cricket Association was formed, it also entered the competition. Indeed, it capped its entry into the contest by winning the trophy easily last season.

This season West Coast won the trophy by an even wider margin; and a better thing could not have happened for Coast cricket. Cricket on the West Coast had long been in the doldrums. Generally speaking, players of ability have always been there but the representative team—apart from a meritorious first innings win against the Wellington Plunket Shield team in a two-day game in Greymouth three years ago—did not achieve comparable results. Two reasons stood out —lack of application and discipline, and lack of concentrated practice. A long-serving West Coast cricket administrator and player, Mr R. H. Donaldson, who was the original mover of the new basis of competition for the Canterbury

minor associations, has been the sound guiding hand at administerial level for the representative team during the present season. He has performed minor miracles in overcoming all the problems associated with representative games, both home and away. Mr Donaldson was a very good player in his time and played regularly with and against many famous test cricketers while on Army duty in the Middle East during World War IL

The West Coast sole selector this season has been a former Lancaster Park player, Mr P. E. Lawler. A brilliant schoolboy cricketer in his day, his career was curtailed by a war injury. As with Mr Donaldson, however, Coast cricket has benefited from Mr Lawler’s desire to put something back into the game. His wide cricketing experience and knowledge was most evident in his selecting and coaching of the Coast representative team this season.

Probably of even greater value to the representative players, however, has been the selector’s disciplining of the team. It has been a very long time since a West Coast cricket team has been so earnest in its application as this year’s team. The results in the Minor Associations’ trophy games speak for themselves. South Canterbury (without J. T. Ward and B. R. Taylor) —beaten outright in Greymouth by 7 wickets. Mid-Canterbury beaten outright in Greymouth by an innings and 43 runs. Buller—beaten outright in Greymouth by an innings and 29 runs.

North Canterbury, who soundly defeated West Coast

outright in Greymouth last season—beaten in Rangiora by 82 runs on the first innings.

With 35 points from four games, the West Coast team was an easy winner of the competition. It was a feat, as far as the Coast is concerned, to match Canterbury’s winning of the Plunket Shield.

The team was strong in batting, as scores of 297 against Mid-Canterbury and 251 for 4 wickets declared against Buller, would suggest. Seven players finished with batting averages higher than 25. Heading the list were the captain and vicecaptain of the team, L. R. H. Bunt, a former East Christchurch player, and D. H. Joyce, a former Malvern player. Bunt had a batting average of 64.8 in the four games and Joyce, who scored an excellent 125 against MidCanterbury, an average of 44.8. Joyce was also the team’s wicket-keeper and his catching, in particular, was always of a very high standard.

The fielding was mainly steady and at times reached very high standards. The cover fielding of C. A. Hibbs, a former South Island Rugby League wing, was brilliant against South Canterbury and Mid-Canterbury.

The bowling was a mixture of very good and indifferent A left-arm spinner, R. Parker, a former Lower Hutt club player, and A. B. Kennedy, a right-arm leg spinner, were the two leading bowlers in the team. Against Buller, Parker, in the first innings, had the remarkable figures of eight wickets for 34 runs. During the series Parker took 14 wickets at an

average of 8.5 runs and Kennedy 12 wickets at 7.7 runs. Both these players played in only three of the four games.

Fast bowling was the team’s biggest weakness. There was no really hostile fast bowler and the medium paced bowling was never more than adequate. J. A. Blair, less well known in cricket circles than his brother, the former New Zealand fast bowler R. W. Blair, was always steady, and W. A. Kennedy was responsible for a fine effort in the first innings against North Canterbury. The side built up an excellent team spirit during the season. Regular team talks and discussions on tactics were of great benefit Cricket in the Canterbury minor associations is probably at a higher level now than It has been for some time—and this makes West Coast’s win the more meritorious. B. R. Taylor and J. T. Ward from South Canterbury are In the New Zealand team. Players like R. Hortin, B. Tutty and C. R. Nicholson from Mid-Canter-bury, B. Shewen from South Canterbury, A. F. Rapley, R. Merrin and P. Mullins from North Canterbury, to name but a few, are all talented cricketers who certainly would not disgrace a Canterbury team. It is to be hoped that the Canterbury Cricket Association continues to foster more and better cricket amongst its minor associations, for there are some very good cricketers in the outlying areas. All they need is the incentive and chance to make further progress in the game.