CRICKET

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 127, 22 February 1939, Page 15

CRICKET

Sir Julien Cahn’s Team GOOD TRY-OUT FOR N.Z. ELEVEN (By Burwood.) Cricketers and followers of the game in New Zealand should be very grateful to that, fine English sportsman, Sir Julien Cahn, for bringing his own private cricket team, at his own expense, to tour the Dominion this year. Cricket could well do with more such generous patrons, ready to lake teams at their own expense to distant portions oi the Empire, and give a fillip to the game in countries to which cricket tours are, like angels' visits, few and far between. The ease with which Sir Julien's team disposed of Waikato and Wanganui so early in the tour would indicate that the visitors have a very strong side. This is admitted, but New Zealand should outplay them in the Test match at Wellington on March 10. .1.1, and 13. Thanks to three tours to England, and visits to the Dominion by English, Australian, South African, and West Indies' teams, New Zealand cricketers have at last thrown off their swaddling clothes and now are able to give a good game to any side which may come along. Would anyone care to say that the team which Sir Julien Cahn is leading through tile Dominion is a stronger side than that which toured New Zealand in the 1929-30 season under A. 11. 11. Gilligan?

Gilligan’s team included such renowned players as Frank Woolley, K. S. Duleepsinhji, M. S. Nichols, E. 11. Bowicy, I*. Barratt, M. J. C. Allom, and T. S. Worthington. New Zealand scored 440 in the first innings of the second Test match against that team at Wellington. C. S. Dempster and J. E. Mills made history by putting on 276 for the first wicket. Mills was the first man out with hie score at 117, and Dempster went on to make 136. England responded with 320, and New Zealand applied the closure _in their second innings when four wickets had fallen for 164 runs. England had 107 runs on for four wickets in their second knock, and a fine match ended in an honourable draw.

Would anyone argue that Lush, I’hillipson, Watts, Walsh, and Smith are better bowlers than Nichols, Allom, Woolley, Worthington, and Barratt?

Dempster Changes Sides. True, that great opening batsmen, Dempster, who scored 136 and 80 not out for New Zealand against Gilligan’s team in the match referred to, will this time be on the opposite side. With his scores of 36, 6-1, and 52 in the three matches in which fie has played for Sir Julien Cahn’s team, Dempster has proved that he is just as solid an opening batsman as he was before he left these shores to take up residence in England.

A Speed Merchant. J. G. Lush, the Australian fast bowler, caused a sensation at Wanganui on Saturday when he clean bowled R. E. Thomas, L. Kantor and D. G. Barton in his opening over without any of the • trio scoring a solitary run. It was just this extra yard of pace which the Australian can work up which caught the Wanganui men napping. Despite the warning he gave in his opening over, Lush also clean bowled M. Guy and H. Guthrie, and wound up with five wickets for 16 runs off six overs. This was the bowler who so surprised G. O. Allen’s M.C.C. team in the match against New South Wales in the 1936-37 season.

The New Zealand Team. The sole selector for New Zealand, Mr. T. C. Lowry, in choosing the team to represent the'Dominion against Sir Julien Cahn’s tenm has clearly had an eye to the future,* ns he has certainly given youth its chance. This is n wise policy, as Don Bradman and his Australians will be over here next year, and we will want young men able to chase the leather with flying feet when Bradman, Hassett, Badcock and Barnes get going on good wickets. J. A. Ongley, W. G. Rainbird, R. E. J. Menzies and J. Ashenden will be wearing New Zealand caps for the first time, and all have justified a trial. While one feels sympathy for the omission of older players such as A. M. Matheson and I. B. Cromb, it has to be remembered that, they have had a tour to England and will not grow any younger.

It upset the balance of the team when 11. G. Vivian, the best all-round player in the Dominion, notified that he was unable to spare time from business to play in the match. Apart from his ability as batsman and fieldsman, the selector was relying upon Vivian to supply the role of slow left-hand spin bowler. With P. E. AVhitelaw and E. W. Tindill to open the innings, New Zealand will have a sound batting string to follow them in AV. M. Wallace, IV. N. Carson, M. P. Donnelly, J. A. Ongley, R. E. J. Menzies, IV. G. Rainbird and_D. A. R. Moloney, the captain of the side. Good Fast Attack.

New Zealand will be well off for bowlers of pace, with J. Cowie, T. L. Pritchard, and W. N. Carson, as the spearhead. The selector did wisely in including J. Ashenden, the Kilbirnie medium-paced bowler, in the team, as he is about the only trundler in the Dominion who can spin the ball at medium pace. Straight up-and-down stuff lias no terrors for bats men of class, aud Ashenden will 'be more likely to cause Dempster, Dyson, Hardstaff, and Oldfield to make faulty strokes than any bowler on the side. Moloney and Donnelly will have to supply the slow spinners, and here we have a right-hander and a left-hander, both' of whom can turn the 'ball. On the New Zealand team's_ tour ot England in 1937. Moloney took 57 wickets at an average of 26.68, and Donnelly took 16 wickets at 42.87 runs apiece. Moloney may sigh that W. E. Merritt saw fit to leave New Zealand for England before the match is over. Merritt was unquestionably the best slow spin bowler the Dominion has ever produced, and it was ou this account that a Lancashire League club enticed him to England. While realizing that Sir Julien Cahn has a formidable side under his command, there is no reason why the New Zealand eleven should not more than hold their own with them. If the weather is fine, the match will probably end in a draw, as there is little chance of the game being played out in three days.

A Star Bowler. It is clear that J. E. Walsh, the lefthanded spin bowler with Sir Julien (Continued at foot of next column)