Dick Motz’s cricket career highlighted by positive deeds

Press, 19 April 1989, Page 34

Dick Motz’s cricket career highlighted by positive deeds

By

JOHN COFFEY

The appointment of Dick Motz to the Canterbury cricket selection panel might be seen as a favourable omen for the province’s chances of making an early impact on the new Shell Trophy home-and-away series.

Motz retired from firstclass play 20 years ago, soon after becoming the first New Zealander to reach the prized milestone of 100 test wickets. It was discovered during a tour to England that Motz had been bowling for 18 months with a displaced vertebra in his back.

Last evening he joined Brian Salt and Wayne Wilson on the Canterbury selection panel for the 1989-90 season.

If there was a particular feature of Motz’s own playing career it was the rapidity with which he adjusted to the greater demands of the game as he advanced through its various plateaux.

Motz, a senior cricketer for Riccarton at 17, was still short of his eighteenth birthday when he enjoyed a stunning debut for Canterbury. Chosen as a replacement for Tony Mac Gibbon, Motz made an indelible impression on the Northern Districts toporder batsmen at Lancaster Park. The youngster, of lively pace with deceptive out-swing and bounding enthusiasm, claimed a wicket in the second over and two in his third.

He completed his firstclass initiation with the impressive analysis of five wickets for 49 runs from a total of 37 overs. Motz’s 12 not out at his only turn with -the bat was encapsulated within a 67-run ninth-wicket partnership (in 49 minutes) with Sam Guillen. Before the season was completed, Motz had performed well enough for a South Island XI and a New Zealand XI in trials to earn serious consideration for the 1958 tour to England.

He had to wait until the unofficial “tests” against Australia in 1959-60 for his next step up the ladder. Sharing the new ball with Gary Bartlett, Motz bowled the experienced test batsman, Brian Booth, for his first victim at that level.

In the next season, Motz had much to do with New Zealand’s first victory over an M.C.C. side since 1907. In the second match at the Basin Reserve, he top-scored with 49 (run

out) in the first innings, then took five inexpensive wickets as New Zealand achieved an ascendancy it held until the tourists had been beaten by 133 runs.

“Real” test cricket came for Motz on the 1961-62 trip to South Africa. Counting the fixtures played in Australia, Motz topped the bowling averages with 85 firstclass wickets at 18.41 runs each.

In his second over of the opening test at Dur-., ban, Motz gained the first of his century of wickets by bowling Eddie Barlow, then another newcomer but destined to become one of South Africa’s most prolific batsmen. Jackie McGlew, Roy McLean and Barlow, again, fell to Motz in the second innings as New Zealand lost narrowly. Motz had six wickets, including Barlow twice, in the drawn second test and continued to be a problem to the South African batsmen in a series drawn, 22. New Zealand had won only one previous test; the results on the 1961-62 tour were a revelation to the sport’s long-suffering supporters.

Firmly established at top level, Motz spearheaded the bowling battery on the 1965 tour to England. Four years later, at The Oval, Phil Sharpe

was to become his one hundredth scalp. Only days afterwards the extent of his back problem was diagnosed and Motz did not accompany the team to India and Pakistan. He retired with his total of first-class wickets at 518, just 19 short of Bob Blair’s then national record.

His best test analysis was six for 63 against India at Lancaster Park in 1967-68. A double century from Graham Dowling and a second innings sixwicket haul by Bartlett sunk the Indians by six wickets.

In that golden summer. Motz also pounded 103 not out for Canterbury against Otago in just 53 minutes from 63 balls. Only Lance Cairns, of all New Zealanders, can claim a century off fewer deliveries. That day at Lancaster Park Motz hit seven sixes and eight fours from an attack which included the Alabaster brothers, Jack and Gren. Motz also had nine wickets in a game he thoroughly dominated.

With such deeds still vivid in the memories of many Canterbury cricket followers, Motz’s second “career” with the provincial squad will attract more than passing interest. It is difficult to imagine his input being anything other than positive.