Horne’s left hand to the fore

Press, 9 March 1987, Page 1

Horne’s left hand to the fore

By

JOHN COFFEY

Phil Horne, of Auckland, was chosen yesterday to replace the Otago opening batsman, Ken Rutherford, in the New Zealand cricket team for the third test against the West Indies at Lancaster Park later this week. The inclusion of Horne provides a basis for New Zealand sport’s latest trick question — which New Zealand cricketer represented his country as both a left-hander and righthander? The catch is Horne’s versatility as a year-round sportsman. His cricket stance is that of a left-

hander, but it is in his right hand that he holds the badminton rackets he wielded at the 1982 and 1986 Commonwealth Games.

Horne, aged 27, intended to give cricket a miss this summer and stay in Europe after competing in the Games in Edinburgh last year. Yesterday’s elevation to the ranks of New Zealand’s double internationals gave him further cause to rejoice that he escaped a particularly harsh northern winter.

Elation will probably be tinged with an equal measure of apprehension

as Horne looks towards his debut on Thursday in opposition to cricket’s most potent fast bowling battery. Rutherford failed to come to terms with the physical and psychological problems posed by the West Indians, and in home and away tests managed a meagre 41 runs in 11 innings. It has been a tortured experience for a batsman with undoubted potential, one who scored 317 in a single innings of a firstclass match in England last year. Rutherford, aged 21, has surely not

been discarded, simply reserved for next month’s tour to Sri Lanka and consideration for a middle-order position. Horne clinched his selection with an innings of 81 for the Shell XI against the West Indians at Napier yesterday. The New Zealand team to assemble in Christchurch tomorrow is otherwise unchanged from that which lost in Auckland last week after drawing the first test in Wellington. Two umpires who have already officiated in the

series, Messrs Steve Woodward (Wellington) and George Morris (Otago), have been appointed for the third test. Mr Woodward stood in the first test, and Mr Morris in the second. New Zealand’s team is: Jeremy Coney (captain), John Wright, Phil Horne, Martin Crowe, Jeff Crowe, Dipak Patel, John Bracewell, Richard Hadlee, lan Smith, Martin Snedden, Stephen Boock, Ewen Chatfield. The West Indians will arrive in Christchurch this afternoon.