STORMY DAY FOR N.Z. CRICKETERS Total of 65 fifth worst in 96 tests played

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32541, 26 February 1971, Page 22

STORMY DAY FOR N.Z. CRICKETERS Total of 65 fifth worst in 96 tests played

(By

R. T. BRITTENDEN

The storm which broke over Christchurch last evening had its prelude at Lancaster Park, when New Zealand met England in the first of a two-match series and was dismissed for 65. It was New Zealand’s lowest score for 13 years, its third-lowest against England, and its fifth worst in all of its 96 tests.

There was some compensation in the capture of three England wickets for 56, but it was a fearful disappointment to a New Zealand team which had earned the right to feel somewhat more optimistic than usual about its prospects —and to a crowd of about 4500.

England’s pace attack removed the top off the batting, before D. L. Underwood, with a magnificent display of spin bowling, took six for 12. For most of the morning the weather was fine and warm, but the signs were there, and rain delayed the afternoon play for 80 minutes. Not all the grumbling and muttering came from the heaving thunder clouds. New Zealand’s batting did not deserve warm admiration; nor did a pitch which gave the bowlers far too much assistance for a first day. Pace men omitted There seemed little likelihood of much lift or life in it, and each side discarded a fast bowler —R. G. D. Willis being left out of England’s 12, M. G. Webb from New Zealand’s. This prospect was evidently shared by Illingworth, who had a third man and deep fine leg posted before a ball was bowled. Keeping the ball well up, Shuttleworth and

Lever moved it, but it came through very low, and it looked a day for run grafting. During this period, when the main problem seemed to be merely one of difficulty in making forcing shots because of the low bounce. New Zealand lost three wickets to bad strokes. Lack of sparkle in the scoring was almost inevitable. But the shots played by Murray, and Morgan, and to a lesser extent Congdon, gave England a hold which tightened until Underwood squeezed the life out of the innings. Opening mistake Perhaps New Zealand made its first mistake before Lever moved in to begin the match. This was in the choice of Murray as Dowling’s opening partner. The omission of Webb argued an awareness that the pitch would play slowly, easily and perhaps low. Murray likes the ball coming on to the bat more than most; Turner is better equipped for the drudgery brought to batting by such conditions.

Even before lunch, Underwood at his very brisk pace, had the ball turning sharply, and so did Illingworth. So, later, did Pollard and Howarth. 121 runs, 13 wickets The gross return, for a playing day of four hours and a half, was 121 runs—--107 off the bat—for a cost of 13 wickets. It was cruel misfortune which brought damp conditions on the days before the match, when the pitch should have been drying and hardening. But such a turnover of batsmen, such a paucity of runs—although soundly placed, England also struggled for survival—pointed clearly to the fact that these were not the conditions which might reasonably be

expected at the start of a test For all the damage Underwood did to New Zealand batting, it was an execution conducted with a skill which delighted. He bowls at a pace which, in spite of notions to the contrary, makes it extremely difficult for a batsman to get at him. His line is an awkward one, for he is often wide in delivery point, and the righthanders kept finding that they were pushing across their front feet to play him. And when there was as much variation in bounce and as much turn in a pitch as there was yesterday, Underwood is probably the most destructive bowler in the world.

Ease and struggle He had a high old time, and it made a diverting succession of duets—at one end Underwood running through the full scale of his skills with practised ease; at the other a batsman fumbling and stumbling and finding all the wrong notes. In almost any circumstances, Underwood is a fine bowler. In conditions such as these, it was too one-sided a contest. Underwood, now in his fourth test against New Zealand, has taken 30 wickets in these games, and they have cost him only 232 runs.

Turner, too, will open the innings at Auckland; but yesterday he was down at No. 6. Perhaps a second error, a quite inadvertent one, was in Dowling winning his ninth toss in nine this season. Or so it seemed, as the wickets fell. But there was so much turn yesterday that the prospects of batsmen coming into their own during the remainder of the match seem remote.

New Zealand’s 65 might have been even smaller, had England not dropped four catches. Dowling, when 1, turned Shuttleworth straight to Luckhurst backward of square; Turner was missed by Luckhurst off Underwood; Pollard, when 6, was dropped behind off Wilson; and Luckhurst, not unexpectedly, failed to hold a tremendously powerful hit Pollard made off Wilson when he was 14.