Pollard Key Bowler In N.Z.’s Final Test Hopes

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32119, 15 October 1969, Page 17

Pollard Key Bowler In N.Z.’s Final Test Hopes

(from

R. T. BRITTENDEN.

N.Z.P.A. special correspondent)

HYDERABAD. The New Zealanders are showing a quiet confidence about the final test against India, which starts today,’but they have a difficult task ahead of them to become the first New Zealand team to win a test series.

The key figure this time will probably be V. Pollard, for India has added another lefthander to its batting in an effort to counter the ■ threat H. J. Howarth presents.

With four left-handers early in the Indian batting order, Pollard will have to shoulder considerable responsibility. But he bowled better in the last two matches than for a long time. With his round-arm action, he cannot flight the ball and he is still very brisk in pace, but he has been turning it and, more important, bowling on a good line. M. G. Burgess does not turn off-breaks much but his ability to have what will be in-swing-ers to left-handers straighten after pitching could be useful. Both teams have been unlucky over their wicketkeepers. The Indian, F. M. Engineer, is a very doubtful starter for the match. He fractured a bone in his right foot during the second test.

It has been an unfortunate year for Engineer. In England, playing for Lancashire, he had his nose broken and twice broke a thumb. If a replacement is necessary for Engineer, it will be Indrajitsinji, who is also a talented ’keeper and an opening batsman. It has been an unlucky tour, too, for B. D. Milburn, of New Zealand, who missed many matches because of a finger injury sustained in England. His keeping has been of a very high standard and he had a good chance of regaining his place from K. J. Wadsworth for this third test until, in the match at Indore, a ball from B. W. Yuile flew from the batsman’s pad flap and. hit him just below the left eye. Although no bone was (broken, Milburn looks as if |he has been on the losing lend of a vigorous fight and

can handly see out of his injured eye. NOT IN DANGER

The manager of the New Zealand team, Mr G. Burgess, has been assured that the situation at Hyderabad is quiet and the safety of the team is not in danger. The players have become accustomed to outbreaks of fighting among spectators for they have occurred every day of every match. But on the last afternoon at Indore, some of the individual fights were particularly savage and unrest spread sufficiently for spectators to hurl chairs from first floor seats on to the edge of the boundary. At least one bottle was thrown, and it landed near V. Pollard, who was fielding on the boundary. Student troubles are frequent in Indore and when one

member of New Zealand team, R. S. Cunis, wished to leave the. ground during the afternoon to collect items of clothing from the team’s hotel, police refused him permission, saying it was the wrong time to go. Later, they allowed him to leave in a bus.

The pitch at the Lal Bahadur Stadium is likely to take turn, and increasingly so on the third day. The outfield is by no means perfect, but vastly superior to those at Bombay and Nagpur. For both sides it will be a battle of nerves at Hyerabad but India was a rattled team at the end of the Nagpur match and New Zealand must start as slight favourite. It should be another absorbing game, with the luck of the toss of paramount importance.