Chatfield will keep playing

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33779, 27 February 1975, Page 1

Chatfield will keep playing

fNew Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, February 26.

Ewen Chatfield propped himself up on pillows in Ward 34 of the Auckland Hospital today and said ruefully: “I thought it was an unwritten law’ that bowlers never bow’led bouncers to bowlers.”

“Apparently it’s the thing these days. I think it must have started in Australia — they had it done to them there.”

But in spite of a baptism in test cricket which ended in near-death at Eden Park on Tuesday. Chatfield, a pro-

cess worker with a Wellington pharmaceutical manufacturer, has no intention of giving up cricket — even though the ball which hit him broke a frontal bone over his left eye.

"I love cricket — it’s myj way of life at the moment,” he said. “Of course, if I get; hit again that might be it, but I’d sooner keep playing.”! Chatfield was on 13 ("thei devil’s number, but I’m not superstitious”) when the ball that ended the first test came down from the M.C.C. fast bowler. Peter Lever. Chatfield’s recollection of the ball is hazy. “I lost sight of it, and I knew it hit me 'on the head. For a few secjonds I staggered, and then I fell over. | “That is all I remember i until we got pretty close to here when I came round in the ambulance and saw the ; M.C.C. trainer, Bernard Thomas, with me.” A hospital spokesman said that Chatfield's condition was "quite satisfactory.” The spokesman said: “We are being extra cautious because he is something of a V.I.P. But he is quite well, and we hope to discharge him tomorrow.”