Cricket Youth

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31248, 21 December 1966, Page 14

Cricket Youth

WEEKLY REVIEW

Possibly because they wanted pleasant memories to tide them over the holidays, schoolboy cricketers at Hospital Corner in Hagley Park produced some climaxes of almost Hitchcock suspense when the last round of competition matches for 1966 concluded on Saturday.

Apart from the fact that both teams fielded 13 players, there was nothing untoward when Riccarton scored 46 against East-Shirley in a D grade match. Barry Whittaker did most of the damage with good length fast bowling and between overs most of the other boys pressed their claims as to bowling ability on the East coach (Mr John Grigg) with vociferousness and good humour that matched the festive season. The merriment eased when East, which had lent Riccarton a player and thereby earned an implicit right to win, discovered its last pair at the wicket with 31 runs still needed. And an unlikely pair they looked, too, with not a stitch of correct cricketing attire between them.

But, luckily, the taller boy, Lance Nicholson, had that commanding presence and forthright manner which in the D grade shrivels such things as technique and style to insignificance. He had played only one previous match this season, but remembered the rudiments of the game and could hit hard. He may also have known a thing or two about softball and its procedures, for on the infrequent occasions that his junior partner, Riki Williams, was allowed the strike he took it under the instruction to “Hit it Riki, hit it baby.” With each run, the East players advanced closer to the wicket to shout their advice to Riki and felicitations to Lance. With only one run needed they were ranged in line some 10 yards from Riki who had the strike. Before he took it, there was a midwicket conference in which the words, “Just one lousy run, Riki,” seemed to be of chief importance. The winning run was made on a pull from a good length ball on the off stump and Mr Grigg was immediately besieged by requests for shouts of ice cream.

Earnest Spirit Although the match was conducted along more demure lines, the East club’s A team was party to an equally engaging struggle against High School Old Boys. In quality, it might have been a senior match. Two innings were narrowly squeezed into the two days and a draw between the two top teams was a fitting result. The game was played almost with test match earnestness and the skill with which Grant McLeod and Geoffrey Murdoch faced the East pace attack, headed by a very lively lan Perry, received mute acknowledgement from the fielders) who lifted their standards to match. East had batted slowly but with style for its 106. McLeod, who had begun the reply the previous week, struck the first four of the Old Boys innings, from a slow full toss, exactly one hour after the start of the morning’s play. Murdoch, playing some delectable cuts off the pace bowlers, helped take the score to 83/2 before leaving his fellow member of the Kirkwood Intermediate School first XI to score the few necessary runs. But shortly afterwards, McLeod, having made 51 in 90 minutes, lifted his head for the first time and returned the ball direct to Perry.

The situation should not have been too desperate, but Jonathan Lee who, like McLeod, is in the representative team primarily for his batting, had dallied too long at the Sockburn swimming pool and was suffering from an advanced case of sunburnt shoulders which put him in the “will bat if needed” category. Then, to make matters worse especially for Lee —lan Rule was brought on for a second spell of spin bowling and very quickly took four wickets for two runs. Old Boys, with only nine players, managed to tie the scores, but it was left to the suffering Lee to lean on a ball and run for the sake of a prestige first innings win.

Bowling Record Rule’s successes with the ball gave him 61 wickets for East schoolboy teams and enabled him to beat the record of 59 established last season by a specialist bowler, John Rowse. Rowse took most of his wickets in the one season; Rule, essentially a change bowler, accumulated his wickets in three years with the club’s A team and two with the C grade team.

The Old Boys team has deserved its successes for it is a close-knit group with a huge appetite for cricket. It has attended club coaching, organised by Mr C. Templeton, en masse and two Sundays ago, without coaxing or assistance from adults, the boys ran their own single wicket tournament at Riccarton Domain. The afternoon’s entertainment was so extemporary, in fact, that the tournament was interrupted while the groundsman, in no uncertain terms, ordered it to be moved off one of the prepared wickets. The enthusiasm in the club for the game is generated chiefly within Room 3A at Kirkwood school. It makes no difference that the teacher is the school’s softball coach; only two of the 19 boys in the class do not play cricket for one of the school’s four teams, and 13 on the class roll turn out on Saturday mornings for High School Old Boys. Room 3A has had the further distinction this season of providing all four school cricket captains, as well as three vice-captains.

Colourful Match After bravely fighting back the tears as the result of a nasty blow on the arm by the fast bowling of Gary Taylor, Riccarton B’s last batsman, Richard Le Compte, avoided the pace attack of Sydenham A with the pluck and dexterity of a matador while at the other end his senior partner, Robert Tasker, flourished and tilted to such effect that the first innings deficit was only 32 and not a good deal greater. The two-day match was the only one at Hospital Corner not played under adult supervision. The conduct degenerated somewhat as play progressed and faithfully recorded repartee like “Howzat?”— “Not out.”—Why not?”— “Mind your own business,” was being bandied about quite freely towards the end of the morning. At one stage, the proceedings attracted to the leg slip position an errant cocker spaniel. This was joined briefly by a basset hound. A most colourful match was won easily by Sydenham for whom the representative player, Ivan Thomson, scored an aggressive 24 out of 76 in the second innings.

Both Sides Benefited

The match between the St. Albans club’s A and B teams was, the contestants agreed, their most enjoyable of the season thus far. There was never much doubt that the A’s would win, but that didn’t matter because the mood of a congenial hit-around settled on the game and both sides benefited from the advice and coaching given between overs by Mr R. James. Paul Duggan, for instance, learned that good flight, length and direction, rather than the slight off turn he can muster will take bags of wickets in schoolboy cricket, and there was the lesson for Robert Walker—who as an opening bowler can be excused for his ignorance of this piece of cricket ing knowledge—that the taking of middle stump from the umpire is of assistance in placing the bat, not the feet.

All-Rounder Ray Smyth and Michael Hawke again scored most of their team’s runs in partnership when Lancaster Park, trailing by 24 runs, batted a second time against Riccarton in an A grade match. Hawke, enjoying an excellent season as an all-rounder, scored 23 out of 52 by getting behind the ball and over it His back foot play is not yet as sure as that from his front foot, but he is one of the grade’s most promising batsmen.

Riccarton needed only 29 runs to win. Wayne McWhirter, the representative wicket keeper, pulled nearly everything bowled to him without making it appear risky and scored all but four of them.

Surprising Success Perhaps because its first loss on the first innings this season was a smarting wound, Lancaster Park’s C grade team made a surprising but successful attempt to score 84 runs in 35 minutes against Riccarton. Five wickets fell to Colin Paine in the chase and victory at the fall of the fifth could have gone to either side. But Graham Stevens, another

promising all-rounder who has taken nearly 30 wickets with his pace bowling this season, carried on the batting onslaught with a left-hander, Larry Porter. Eleven runs were needed in the last over. They were scored in three balls and the pair sailed on to score 19 from the six deliveries. The sacrificial bowler had not been used before in the match and was brought on with hopes that he would bowl widely enough to make a win an impossibility. Alas, he had talent and conceded two fours, a two and a single to Stevens and a six (all sprinted) and a two to Porter. Stevens finished with 55 not out.

Concentration Lack A general lack of concentration in its second innings plunged Old Collegians to an innings defeat in its A grade match with Burnside. The heavy loss was inexcusable because John Lindsay (4/5 from 11 overs of fast bowling) and Warwick Beatson (5/15 with medium-pace inswing), who had dismissed Old Collegians for 27 in the first innings, were sportingly withheld from the attack in the second innings by the Burnside coach, Mr R. Beatson.

Old Collegians will have several weeks to reflect on their sins. The competitions will resume on February 4.