FAST BOWLERS FACE DAY OF TRIAL N.Z. On Retreat As Test Swings To West Indies

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31933, 10 March 1969, Page 22

FAST BOWLERS FACE DAY OF TRIAL N.Z. On Retreat As Test Swings To West Indies

(From R. T. BRITTENDEN) WELLINGTON. New Zealand is in slow retreat in the second test. After standing firm for half the second day of the match on Saturday, the New Zealanders were forced to withdraw, in the language of another day, to prepare strategic | positions, and with seven batsmen gone, are still 40 runs behind the West* Indies first-innings total of 297.

It was a sharp battle throughout the day, on a pitch which allowed the ball to get up awkwardly from almost a full length.

So the West Indies based their attack on pace, with C. C. Griffith, R. M. Edwards and G. S. Sobers bowling 50 overs during the day to 24 from the spinners, L. R. Gibbs and M. C. Carew.

It is a good pitch, but a demanding one, and there was fierce hostility from Griffith and Edwards, in particular.

New Zealand’s score at one time stood at 137 for one, onlv 160 short of the West Indies total. Then Edwards, bowling into a strong wind from a short run, had three wickets In 17 deliveries, and it was left to B. W. Yuile, B R. Taylor and R. C. Motz. all of whom batted with calm courage, to withstand the barrage of bumpers and fuller-length lifting deliveries to keep intact New Zealand’s hopes. As things are, New Zealand will probably be forced to capitulate, unless its pace bowlers '■an achieve something out of the ordinary today. Record Stand In the period of New Zealand plenty, there was a fine partnership between G. M Turner, who scored 74, and B. E. Congdon, who made 52 and passed his first 1000 runs in tests. Their stand of 96 was New Zealand’s best for the second wicket against the West Indies.

They made them in only 104 minutes, with extremely

good batting, but they were parted about half • way through the playing day, and from that point the West Indies exerted tremendous pressure. The Basin Reserve on Saturday seemed singularly suited to the reek of cordite: if the events in the middle resembled a set battle, there were the wailing sirens of ambulances, fire engines, police cars, or whatever the vehicles which seemed to spend Saturdays on the road skirting the fences of the ground. Cold And Windy There was, too, a raucous crowd, noisier, perhaps, than it might have been had it not been deprived of its l canned beer about 1 p.m., on the grounds that the marquee licence permitted consumption only within the tent And there was the strong, cold nd gusty northerly winds which sent newspapers and paper cartons tumbling across the ground, and brought up duststorms from the pitch. The feeling of being in the middle of a battle was accentuated by the regularity with which the large tin numbers flew off the scoreboard to threaten the lives and limbs of those nearby. It was no day for cricket’s soft airs and graces and for one almost absurdly youthful in appearance, Turner batted with all the grim resolve of a Yorkshireman required to [save a match against the Australians. Rimless 50min. He made a flying start, taking 12 from the first over ’Griffith bowled, and G. T. IDowling also picked up early kuns. But all of them, from both batsmen, came from oniside shots, and after those first few minutes, there was a full hour in which Griffith, Edwards and Sobers maintained their attack on or just outside the off-stump- a clear reflection of the ability of both New Zealand openers to play the ball off the hip and pad profitably. Dowling never achieved full assurance, and Turner, after taking those 12 runs, was dropped by Sobers in the slips off Griffith. This was during a period jf 50 minutes in which he did not score a run, but in which his devotion to duty was admirable,

his middling of the ball becoming consistent. He lost Dowling when the New Zealand captain hit one hard off the back foot, for Gibbs to take a very good gully catch. But Congdon changed the picture. From his first over, he hit the ball firmly and well, and his mature confidence freed Turner from his shackles.

Turner began to drive, he again picked up runs with onside deflections, and Congdon, with gl aces, handsome drives and fierce square cuts, looked a top class batsman and quite unlike the cramped and vulnerable player of a year or two ago.

They put on 45 before lunch briskly, and continued most entertainingly for nearly an hour after the interval. Then Congdon, attempting a lofted off-drive off Carew, did not quite get to the pitch of the ball and Sobers, deep at mid-off, held a ski»d catch. Two Great Catches Edwards then punched a gaping hole in the batting. Bowling in his Connolly style, he had B. F. Hastings caught, if in a somewhat fortunate manner. Gibbs, at first slip, dropped the catch but the wicket-keeper, J. L. Hendriks, with remarkably quick reaction, lunged beneath the ball, backwards and to his right, and held it Turner was also a little unfortunate, for his on-drive was authentic, and hit with great power, but Sobers, at short mid-on, picked up the spectacular sort of catch which has helped him to his present fame. Still with the score at 169, R. W. Morgan, without taking the elementary measure of moving his feet to get over the ball, slashed and was caught in slips.

From the moment, any sort of New Zealand resistance seemed an irritation to the West Indies, an irritation reflected in the high proportion of bouncers bowled, particularly by Griffith. One from Edwards hit V. Pollard on the head—the first ball he faced —and until stumps the batsmen were genuflecting regularly. Pollard, after 69 grim minutes of battling for survival, walked when the ball touched a glove as he was swaying away from a bumper. Yuile’s Courage Yuile, hit twice, as was Pollard, displayed tremendous courage in an innings of 98 minutes, and he was more than merely adhesive. When the ball was up to him he drove well, he made a couple of magnificent square cuts, and his bat was a banner beneath which New Zealand regrouped. B. R. Taylor has already been in an hour and a half for 22, meeting perhaps the most severe demands ever made on him. At Auckland, he made a century in 86 minutes; on Saturday, after a similar period, he had grafted 17 runs from an attack not prepared to concede that survival was a reasonable proposition. At Auckland, it was disciplined hitting; this time.

disciplined defence. It was an innings which did Taylor almost as much credit as his spectacular Auckland success. Motz, too, defended with commendable stoutness of heart and width of bat. Fast bowlers’ conventions did not spare them entirely from the dangerously short - pitched ball.

Griffith really meant business from the first over he bowled. He was no-balled 10 times—as Motz had been on the first day—which obviously added little to the pleasure he took in the occasion. He worked up to a very lively pace, and on a pitch which, if it did not permit the ball to seam as much as it had done earlier, was full of encouragement for the fast bowler.

Edwards, off his long run, did not manage the wind particularly well, whether bowling into it or at the other end. But from his short run he was magnificent, moving the ball either way and achieving an occasional violent bouncer.

Sobers, who claimed Yuile’s wicket with the second new ball, was also hostile, and notwithstanding the mid-after-noon collapse, New Zealand came out of the day with much credit But the West Indies are distinctly in command.

Even if the ball continues to bounce, the West Indies batsmen have the virtuosity to keep scoring runs, and a superb ability to hit their shots into gaps. New Zealand’s pace bowlers will have to be at their very best if the match is to remain on a reasonably even keel.