A FINE OPENING

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 142, 20 June 1927, Page 10

A FINE OPENING

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

"BATTING JUST SPLENDID"

(Written for "The Post" by Colonel Philip Trevor, C.8.E.)

(Copyright.)

LONDON, IGth May. Cricketers in England are as delighted as cricketers in> New Zealand at the fine send-off that tho tour has had. It is all tho more -welcome because it lias not been heralded by a flourish of trumpets. These young men have said nothing and done,much. Bettor still, their friends have not been unwise enough either to..' promiso great' things or to mako excuses in advance for them. "Wo hope to learn a. little about cricket during tho tour." That has been their ' attitude. It looks to me as If thoy may teach a little, too. I frankly own that my trouble at tho moment i/j to curb tho tendency to speak in ttr.e suporlativo degree. I purposely rcfe-ained from going to sco them practice, at Lords. You can tell stylo and fo:rm from net work. But match norvto always has been, and always will be, tho true test of an individual cricketer. So I waited for the openin/r game at Maidenhead, and that first "Jay's play absolutely delighted me. There was no first-class bowler opposed to them, it is true, but oven so, I tho-ught the. batting I saw just splendid./ I was quite unprepared for it to be ut once so sound and so dominant. Batsmen as a rule like a nice, easy-paoed wicket to start on, and this wicket .-was very fast indeed. CONVINCING BATTING. ,Whow the New Zealand Rugby Footballera' recently came here I said with-' out reservation of any kind that I did not. expect to see them beaten. I was only surprised that when I unhesitatingly prophesied their continuous success to find myself, if I may say so, in sib distinguished a minority. Cricket, of /course, is quite a different thing, and. I want to sco my young friends who are here under the able captaincy of T. C. Lowry up against it before I sp/aak with confidence about them. S4;ill, I do not want people in New Zealand to think that the bowling i ivhich was so drastically treated on the I opening day of the tour was "trash.'' It kept a good length until about tea- 1 time, and the reason why the scoring was so 'heavy and so fast was because when each succeeding batsman had got tho pace of the wicket he punished the good length ball as well as the' bad length one. ' AH I am doing at tho moment is to record my first impressions, and I cannot put the case better than by saying that with difficulty do I restrain a tendency to over-praise. Surely, it is strokes that count, and a batsman who has not the capacity to make strokes will not suddenly become endowed with it, even when he is playing against the bowling of little boys. As hour after hour went by, and I saw the middle of the bat put easily and cncomproKiisingly in to the ball, I felt more and more convinced that the young men who did it belonged to a school of cricket which is needed rather badly in this country at the moment. And they played well within themselves, too. I watched carefully, indeed. The ball went where the man who hit it intended it to go. THE BOWLING. I could hardly expect that my first impressions of the bowling and the fielding would be as gratifying as my first impressions of the batting. lam

not making excuses for either! lam merely offering what I regard as reasonable explanation. The New Zealanders had .batted in summer timenext day they bowled and fielded in Arctic weather. Now, it' stands to reason that length is a prima facie necessity in bowling, and a capacity to acquire a continuously good length is only to be got by continuous match practice. Young men whose match cricket is limited to Saturday afternoon cricket have to acquire, that capacity. The power to make the ball do funny things is undoubtedly there, and when steadiness and length have been acquired by practice the, "funny thing" will be dangerous. Merritt strikes me as full of possibilities. He is not afraid to pitch the ball up>. His leg-break is rarely short-pitched,, and his "wrong: 'vii." is cleverly masked. Bernau should be a considerable asset. Our batsmen are not greatly accustomed to the type of bowling which he and Henderson "represent. Blunts real good one is a very good one.

Most important of all is the fielding, and especially the slip fielding. Here, there really is room for improvement— improvement ■in method. The slip fieldsman must be anticipatory. He must lean forward and watch the ball off the ba%. To be a fraction of a second'late, is fatal:, a tendency to grab is at least prpferable to a tendency to be a shade late. To be quite frank, I noticed the lack of instant anticipation in the running between wickets. It is essential ir run the first run fast and to turn quickly. These young men have the supremi advantage of youth: it would be a pity if they failed, to turn to advantage youth's greatest asset. Here I give merely my first impressions. I write them down as impressions and not as judgments. For all that, J am sure that I shall not have to take'back anything I have, said about the fine batting promise of the team. The second match of the tour against a very strong amateur M.C.C. side (nearly every member of which is a forcing batsman) has still to be played. HIGH PRAISE FOR DACEE. The foregoing was written before the match against the M.C.C. had been begun. That match, which incidentally broke the aggregate record for runs scored in a match in England is over, and I find myself in the happy position of having nothing to take back. Indeed, I am almost inclined to plume myself on my sagacity. Was I or was I not right about the New Zealand batting? I will answer my own question by saying that I was right. In the pavilion at Lord's during that match X met many of the greater players of the past. They one and all agreed with me about the New Zealand batting. They were delighted, with it; there was not a dissentient voice. Even if they had disagreed with me I should have felt compelled to stick to my guns. It was not a mere case of bright hitting and fast run-getting. . It was far more than that. These runs were the outcome of first-class strokes. Daere's innings were, with a single exception, the most brilliant I have seen played by an overseas batsman since poor Victor Trumper delighted us. The exception I make is the Test match innings played at Leeds a year ago by Charlie Macartney; and not Charlie Macartney nor Hobbs could have forced across the wicket the- slightly under-pitched ball more strongly a^-d with greater certainty than Dacjre did it. Dacro's partnership with Lowry—it produced 115 runs in three:quarters of an hour—will long be reinemV'—d at Lord's., We thought wo knew all about Lowry; we evidently did not.. He hit magnificently in his first innings, and when, in his second he was called oii 'to save the game, he showed his fine batting judgment as well as liis defensive capacity. However, at the moment I refrain from further criticism of individuals. IMPROVEMENT NECESSARY. Unfortunately, I have nothingto take back of what I-have just said of the bowling and fielding of tho New Zoalanders. I, wish, I; had. I make no secret of the fact that I want this New Zealand side to do well, and if it is to do well its bowling and fieltVng must improve very considerably. The fastmedium bowlers must above all things ncquiro and keep a length, ;^iU at present they have not succeeded in doing so. Tho M.C.C. side was almost a Gentlemen of England side, and it was rich in forcing batsmen. Those batsmen treated the New Zealand bowling severely. . To be frank, they hit it about very much as, they chose —spin, flight, break, swerve—they are all useless without length and direction, and length especially. Even more important is it that there should bo an improvement in fielding. Nor is it only as anticipatory slip fieldsmen that these New Zealanders as yet disappoint us. Thero is too much general raggedness in thoir gathering and returning of the ball. Nearly always has K. C. James, who is a distinctly capable wicketkeoper, to movo from his wicket when it is returned to him. You cannot make yourself a great bowler by assiduous praVtico, but you can inako yourself an accurate and capable fieldsman if you think it worth whiles to take the necessary troublo to do So splendid is tho New Zealan batting that the sido will always bo hard to beat. At tho same time I cannot see that side as a match-winning one unless its members make a substantial improvement in bowling and fielding.