HOPES OF AUCKLAND

Evening Post, Issue 144, 15 December 1926, Page 13

HOPES OF AUCKLAND

CANDIDATES FOR ENGLISH TOUR. (By Telegraph,) (Special to "Tho Evening Post") AUCKLANP, This Day. In the course of an article on the Auckland Phmket Shield team in last night's "Star" "Actaeon" says:--"There j might be remarked, too, another feature about the team wh,ich will add to public interest in its performances. Practically all the Aucklanderp jn the telP 1 a»'° con" tenders for places in the New Zealand team. N. C. Snedden has been mentioned by Southern Writers as a possible candidate -as player-manager for the IJpme trip, and there has been » suggestion that this waa the ace that Auckland had up its. sleeve.in the poker game which appears to be going on in the appointment of a manager. But Snedden is not available for the English trip, and the only significance attaching to Auckland's, silence at not being given any representation on the Selection' Committee is disgust among the Auckland players and followers a.t what appears to be a gratuitous slighting o£ a.n association which probably has a greater playiPS strength (in numbers) thai], any other in New Zealand. "It ib true that Auckland suggested a selection committee of three, one of the associations being thus unrepresented each year in rotation, the first to hiiss. being decided by lot. '-The New Zealand Council persuaded Auckland to withdraw tlie proposal, on the ploa that the present occasion was too "critical a one for a large association like Auckland to risk being unrepresented through the luck of the draw. Then, in cold blood, the council itself put the proposal into operation, and deliberately cut out Auckland. Were it not for an underlying tang of sharp practice, the,thjug mjgh,t be regarded as rather a gpod joke on Auckland- In Auckland it is looked on as the kin 4pf ."joke nqt tp be forgiven readily, or ever forgotten, "To revert to the team's New Zealand candidates, it phould he said that Auckland cricket opinion is solidly set on the view that Alloott, Daore, and Rpwntvee are outstandingly the thi'ee players for New Zealand's very best team, no matter on what lines that tea.ni- ?s pipkeil. It is equally solid for the. selection' of qne out of the Mills-CoQnpr^Jei'yai'fJJ?]nyev quartette,. At present thpre'ffia special lining for Mills, for form oil the southern tour will consolidate opinion about; which, of its players Auckland wants iii.the team. As to what it expects to, g?£ in the team, tlip. Auckland cricket public ' stands alone among the major bodies of the game in New Zealand, It; has been put down among tho country players. Its prayer goes not to its representative op the Selection Committee, for it has nq representative, but to the New Zealand Council. Should the Auckland team and players have a triumphant tour (meeting opponents on their own grounds and conditions) the suspended judgment qf Auckland's cricket public is certain, to find voioe. In such an event tho position in which the New Zealand Council has put itself probably will be found to be invidious.