Master’s wicket Just one of those things’

Press, 14 March 1987, Page 84

Master’s wicket Just one of those things’

Ewen Chatfield admitted after play yesterday that his leg-side dismissal of the West Indian captain, Viv Richards, was not the result of preying upon any previouslyundisclosed weakness in the technique of one of cricket’s finest batsmen. The removal of Richards, completed by lan Smith’s outstanding catch, had the West Indies reeling at 56 for four. But Chatfield summed it all up as “one of those things.” His tactics had actually been to concentrate wider of Richards’ off-stump, and the ball which caused the downfall of the “master blaster” was off its planned course. “I don’t try to bowl down the leg side any time,” said Chatfield. “But obviously it works and maybe I should try it more often. "It was one of those things, you try to keep a

guy tied down and to frustrate him into making a mistake.” The conditions had offered plenty of help, said Chatfield, who expects the pitch to offer the seamers more than the usual measure of assistance for some time

yet. “There is a little bit of uneven bounce at the end I was bowling to. I think it will get lower and lower,” he said. He summed up his bowling in words of understatement. “I bowled reasonably well to lunch. After lunch, things didn’t go quite as well as I’d have liked them to.” Chatfield is poised to join Richard Hadlee, Lance Cairns, Richard Collinge, Bruce Taylor and Dick Motz as the only New Zealand bowlers with 100 or more test victims. Yesterday he took his aggregate to 97.

“If it happens here or in Sri Lanka it will be nice to get there,” he said. Giving it more consideration, Chatfield added, “it would be nice to get three more in the second innings and do it in New Zealand.”