RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31307, 1 March 1967, Page 28

RANDOM REMINDER

DECLINE AND FALL

As today ushers in the month of March, and March is the last month in the cricket season, it is time to comment briefly on one of the least-publicised but most spectacular feats of cricketing arms during the summer. It occurred in an annual match played at Le Hons Bay between the home side and representatives of “The Press.” The visitors, sent in to bat first through country courtesy, arrived and departed with remarkable regularity, few of them, in the language of another newspaper day, troubling the SCOI ?F' Scorer, singulars the visitors had forgotten to bring their book. So, the home team began to bat wlt j l only a modest task ahead. The opening batsmen were, to coin a phrase, untroubled by the bowling. They did not score quickly, on a ground where 100 an hour is regarded as playing it a bit tight. But they gathered in their runs steadily. . .. And so to the dramatic moment in mid-afternoon

when a significant change was made in the bowling. The visiting captain, who had won his office through seniority rather than skill, put himself on to bowl. Somewhat portly of frame, out of breath and practice, he delivered what club cricketers in England often call, in their kindness of heart, “military medium.” The home team could have been forgiven for regarding the bowling change as a concession of defeat just as, in more exalted cricketing circles, the wicketkeeper is asked to bowl when the batting side needs one run to win. The opening batsman, startled perhaps, at his own good fortune, contrived to demolish his wickets with his bat? he did not touch the stumps, he razed them. This brought to the wicket one of the heaviest-scoring batsmen in the history of cricket in the district, a young man keen of eye, powerful of stroke. He went first ball. It was pitched, it must be admitted, rather short of a good length, and the bats-

man was clearly uncertain whether to hook it for 6 or crash it through the covers. He was still pondering the problem when the ball collided gentlwith the bottom of b* iff stump.

Money, they say, .aakes money. And in cricket, unexpected success can give rise to opportunity for further triumph. So out of character were the bowling successes that there was a frenzied scramble for some-one to pad up. The bowler, meanwhile, had seen a glimpse of immortality, and convinced himself that if the next batsman did not arrive within two minutes, he would have achieved one of the most unusual hattricks ever recorded. He was dissuaded from this illegal and immoral line of reasoning, but still had his chance to make it real. He put an extra yard on his run, thereby almost doubling it But he had clearly run out of ideas. He was cut down to size when he achieved nothing more lethal than an amiablypaced full toss.