Victoria Team’s ‘Baby’ Hits Maiden Century

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31223, 22 November 1966, Page 19

Victoria Team’s ‘Baby’ Hits Maiden Century

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

MELBOURNE.

Cricket experts are predicting that L. Joslin, the 18-year-old “baby” of the Victorian State team, could win an Australian cricket cap before the 1966-67 season ends.

He hit Victoria to the lead over Western Australia in a Sheffield Shield match on Saturday with an almost flawless 126, his maiden shield century.

It must have put him in the running for a trip to New Zealand with the Australian team in February.

Joslin attributes all he knows about cricket to the former Australian left-arm “googly” bowler, G. Tribe.

“I had the best coach in the world,” he said of Mr Tribe yesterday. Joslin, who will be 19 in three weeks, is the youngest left-hand batsman to score a century for Victoria since N. Harvey began his career with a score of 154 against Tasmania at Hobart in 1946. Taller than Harvey—he is sft Ilin and still growing— Joslin does not hit the ball with the same explosive power. His strokes are smooth and

there is a resemblance to another Victorian left-hander, R. Cowper, in the way he appears to have time to watch the ball come on to his bat. At 13, Joslin joined a coaching class arranged by Mr Tribe, who had just returned home after several seasons of

playing in England. Mr Tribe has coached him since. On Saturday, Mr Tribe made a rush trip to the Melbourne Cricket Ground when he heard that Joslin was 99 not out at the tea interval. He arrived in time to see Joslin complete his century. “I spoke to Joslin on the telephone on Friday night and told him to aim at getting 150 in his first innings at Melbourne,” said Mr Tribe. “He was only 24 runs short, but I wish I had set him a target of 200.”