Selection headache after Congdon’s retirement

Press, 20 January 1979, Page 56

Selection headache after Congdon’s retirement

By

R. T. BRITTENDEN

The retirement of Bevan Congdon has left the national cricket selectors with an insoluble problem. Little wonder they delayed the announcement of their team from Thursday to next Monday.

Congdon was a man of cricketing parts — a fine batsman, and the test team’s fifth bowler. The selectors will want to have five bowlers in the team to meet Pakistan. But if they have them, they can have only five specialist batsmen, and that would leave the batting somewhat short. They need six batsmen, they need five bowlers, but they have to have a wicketkeeper. The only wa. out, and it is not a satisfactory one, is to hope that Geoffrey Howarth regains his fitness, and to pray that he can bowl his gentle off-spin economically enough to give the bowlers sufficient rest. The other main concern for the selectors must be the form of Brendon Bracewell. This youngster seemed assured of a regular test place at the end of the 1978 England tour, when his promise was widely acclaimed by the best of critics. In that tour, he had some

trouble with no-balling, and he was gently warned by kindly umpires that, he tended to run through illegally straight.

These faults seem to have grown during the New Zealand season. They were certainly there in the early matches, and although Bracewell has apparently overcome them to some extent, he must have suffered in confidence and he has had a poor season in six matches — only a dozen wickets at almost 36 runs each. He was required to bowl into the wind in Central’s match with Pakistan — a strange decision — and there his nine overs cost 80 runs, a deflating experience. The delay in announcing the test side has given Bracewell another match to prove that all is well with him; not that the Eden Park pitch, on recent evidence, will help him look lethal. John Wright, Bruce Edgar, Howarth and Mark Burgess command batting places automatically. There are several candidates for the other two positions. Among them are John Morrison, John Reid, Barry Hadlee. Rod Fulton, John Parker, Robert Anderson and Jock Edwards. Morrison and Parker are

I players of much experience, with Morrison having been in much more covincing form than Parker. Fulton has had a good season and has looked a fine player in making his runs. Hadlee has also batted particularly well, and has topped 500 runs in first-class matches. Anderson batted well on tour last year but failed as a test opener. But there will probably be an inclination to bat him lower in the order, for he is a fine striker of the ball and has an attacking bent. Young Reid, the Auckland left-hander, must have a very good chance of selection. He looks a sound, mature batsman. Edwards is another complication. ft is unlikely that the selectors will want to perpetuate the error they made last season, when Edwards was chosen to tour ahead of Warren Lees, but there must be a strong temptation to have Edwards again. First, he is, by all reports, keeping wicket really well this season, and he has batted successfully. Lees is a better ’keeper, but his frailty against pace bowling has to be considered, for Pakistan has a very lively seam attack. Edwards might

possibly get in, as a batsman; but Lees will have to be the wicket-keeper. Richard Hadlee, Lance Cairns and Stephen Boock are certainties, and it is well that Cairns is so strong, and can bowl for so long in a spell.

Ewen Chatfield, Alan Stimpson, Alistair Jordan and Warren Stott must be considered rivals of Bracewell, and if Bracewell is not in convincing form at Auckland, the position might go to the industrious Chatfield, who is having another good season.

Chatfield has not been a success in tests — eight wickets for 485 in four matches — but he has probably earned another chance. There must also be regard for Jordan, for his sturdy aggression and his consistently good record for Central Districts over a good many years. New Zealand’s XI could well be: Wright, Edgar, Howarth, Burgess, Reid, Anderson. Lees, Cairns, R. Hadlee, Boock and Bracewell. But it is a long time since there have been such problems, so wide a choice for the debatable places.