Chatfield may return home—Blain

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 46

Chatfield may return home —Blain

PA Nelson The Wellington pace bowler, Ewen Chatfield, might soon be on his way home from the New Zealand cricket tour of England, a team mate said yesterday. Speaking from London, the wicketkeeper, Tony Blain, said that although plans were not yet finalised, Chatfield’s broken thumb would almost certainly disqualify him for the rest of the tour.

Blain told the “Nelson Mail” Chatfield’s thumb was hi a cast and would take longer to heal than

tbe 10 days initially forecast

He said the Auckland medium-pace bowler, Martin Snedden, was the player on standby and was likely to replace Chatfield once an official announcement was made.

Meanwhile watching himself on video has been an important factor in a surge of form by the medium-pacer, Willie Watson, which will almost certainly see him named in the New Zealand side to play the first cricket test against England at Lord’s, reports NZPA in London. The Auckland seamer’s

selection for the test, to begin today, has become a virtual formality after recent vastly improved performances. They indicated he was becoming increasingly well equipped to fill the shoes of Chatfield.

Watson, aged 20, bowled well in the oneday international at Old Trafford, conceding 33 runs off his first 10 overs on an excellent batting wicket. His final analysis was. tarnished somewhat when 13 runs were taken off his last over. After that effort he had a match analysis of five for 71 off 36 accurate overs against Not-

tinghamshire in the final warm-up game before the test.

A spark has come into Watson’s bowling, vastly improving it from the lacklustre days early in the tour when a test debut at Lord’s seemed a highly unlikely proposition.

The New Zealand side will be announced today after the selection panel of Mr Turner, the captain Jeremy Coney and the vice-captain John Wright, have considered a number of options.

The selection case for adding the all-rounder, Evt*a Gray, and dropping

a batsman, probably Ken Rutherford, is boosted by Gray’s tour batting average of 61.7, and his status as the chief wicket-taker. But those successes have been achieved largely against fairly weak opposition, and his left-arm spin was treated with some contempt by England in the one-day internationals.

New Zealand played three seamers and two spinners (Gray and Bracewell) in the test at Lord’s on the 1983 tour, and found its weakened batting line-up could not cope with the pace of Bob Willis and tty? spin

of Nick Cook on a dry, bouncy pitch. A further option is to play just two seamers, with Stirling omitted, and two spinners, thereby including both Gray and six specialist batsmen. But such a New Zealand attack might find it difficult to bowl even such a fragile England batting line-up out twice. And Stirling’s best success on tour has been at Lord’s where on a fast and bouncy wicket, which may well be duplicated in the test, he captured five for 98 off 31 excellent overs.

Earlier report, page 27.