SIDELINES

Press, 8 July 1983, Page 10

SIDELINES

THE INDOOR cricket school at Hagley Oval has now b-en open for 15 years and has been a tremendous asset to the game. But it was by no means the first. Well over a century ago, George Dickenson, who played for Canterbury in its first match in 1863-64 and, in all, had nine appearances for the province, had the first indoor school This was in a specially-built bam, 30 yards long and five yards wide, with skylights and a matting pitch in St Albans. It stayed there for years, for in later times two of Canterbury’s greatest, Dan Reese and Arthur Sims, spent youthful winters practising there ...

THE FIRST lighted indoor school was opened 100 years ago - on June 8, 1883. It was “Mr Pocock’s cricket pavilion in Hereford Street.” The opening was something of a gala occasion. There was "music and cricket by gaslight. The pavilion is most comfortably fitted up and possesses every appliance not only for the practice of cricket at night, but also facilities for singlestick exercise and boxing. During the evening some good songs were given, and the band played several selections” ...

...A REPORT in “The Press” four days earlier, however, offers a strong suggestion that Mr Pocock’s gaslight was not all it might have been ... “The illumination of the wicket is very satisfactory. Mr Sykes has succeeded in devising an electric attachment to the stumps, which, by the tingling of the bell, informs the bowler when he has broken through the batsman’s

defence.”