Aust. Regains Confidence

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30739, 1 May 1965, Page 13

Aust. Regains Confidence

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) BRIDGETOWN, April 30. Australia is likely to enter the fourth test with an unchanged side after this confidence-restoring current performance against Barbados.

G. Thomas, with a superb innings of 110 not out yesterday, held off the challenge from the left-hander, B. Shepherd, for the No. 6 batting position.

S. Trimble’s failure as an opener on Wednesday—out for nine after a rough 70minute passage against W. Hall and C. Griffith—probably will cast out any ideas R. B. Simpson might have had of dropping him down the batting order. Three Centuries

Yesterday, Australia declared at 461 for nine against the powerful Barbados team, which contains the bulk of the West Indian test attack. Simpson, N. C. O’Neill and Thomas scored centuries. The score represented not only two days of solid batsmanship, but also a triumph of courage and solidity against the awesome speed of Hall and Griffith. Simpson, with his dour century, laid the foundations on which the dashing O’Neill and Thomas effectively capitalised. Significantly, yesterday, both O’Neill and Thomas took aggressive if unorthodox measures against the ration of bumpers served up to them. Both cut audaciously at the climbing bouncers, purposely to clear the heads of the slip fieldsmen.

Some eight or nine boundaries must have come from deliberately edged shots off bouncers that flew to the boundary at third man in a single bounce. There was a measure of danger about all this, but it was a welcome sight of ag-

gression in -contrast to the earlier spectacle of Australian batsmen ducking and weaving for safety. The climax came when Thomas brilliantly hooked Hall for six over the square leg fence. Hall looked a bowed and beaten bowler as he slouched from the bowling scene.

Not so Griffith, however. He came in for punishment O’Neill cutting him through slips and Thomas over slips, but Griffith remained a tough adversary, never quite beaten even on this paceless lifeless pitch.

AUSTRALIA First Innings S. Trimble, c Allen, b Edwards 9 R. Simpson, c Bynoe, b Griffith 117 R. At Cowper, c Nurse, b White .. 26 N. O'Neil, c Edwards, b Sobers .. jqj B. Shepherd. lbw. b Hall 32 G. Thomas, not out no ,B. Jarman, c Nurse, b Sobers .. 25 D. Sincock. b Brancker .. 7 G. McKenzie, c Nurse, b Brancker .. 0 P. Allan, c Bynoe, b White 9 Extras . 25 Total <9 wckts dec.) 461 Fall of wickets: One for 41 two for 99, three for 255. fou for 272, five for 332, six for 40' seven for 440. eight for 442. nin for 461.

BARBADOS First Innings R. Bynoe, not out .. .. 4 C. Hunte, not out .. 19 Extras .. .8 Total (for no wkt.) 31

Bowling 0. M. R. W. Hal] .. 17 3 68 1 Griffith .. 20 4 70 1 Edwards .. 17 3 54 1 Sobers .. 26 6 88 2 White .. 17.3 3 49 2 Brancker .. 32 7 87 2 Lashley 6 1 20 0