CRICKET

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 152, 24 December 1927, Page 22

CRICKET

By "NOT OUT"

SHIELD TEAM

PLUNKET SHIELD CONTEST

WELLINGTON'S -MATERIAL

With the Town-Country match finishing to-day, the attention of local followers of the game will be focussed on . the first 'of Wellington's Plunket Shield matches, to be played with Canterbury at the Basin Reserve, commencing next Saturday. The Wellington team will differ somewhat from that which represented the province last season. Hiddleston and Kortlang are away, the former being expected back early in the New Tear, and Hollings and Henderson are in temporary retirement owing to injury and sickness respectively. It would appear that the absence of those players will considerably affect the Wellington side's strength, but the province is- fortunate in having worthy players on. hand to fill the. vacancies, and there is also to betaken into account the fact that Wellington should be all the better for..•the experience gained by its representatives on the tour to England. For instance, Dempster as a batsman, and" James as a 'keeper, have improved out of sight. M'Girr and Lowry, also of the New Zealand team, will doubtless be called upon again to assist Wellington in the Plunket Shield matches, and with Henderson not. available it is expected that the other fast left-hander, Bernau, will be given a place. As an opening batsman Worker, who has been showing fine form in gawkes Bay, is entitled to serious consideration, and with his experience he vill most likely be given preference to Jirey. • F. T. Badcock, the Wellington coach, must also be included, and another player with excellent claims, and backed by plenty of experience, is Lambert. . That leaves three places to be filled, and, as previously anticipated, one of these will probably bo allotted to Brice, in order to give the side the benefit of his excellent captaincy. There is need of a really good slow bowler, but if. none of outstanding quality can be found, this part of the attack will be left largely to Brice. For one of the other two places H. :Foley, who made good in his trial with The Best against the tourists, is acertainty. Possible candidates for the other vacancy are by no means- few. The chances are that one of th.c players doing well in the Town-Country match will be included, and the "most likely of these appear to be Massey, Naismith, and Galliehan. Among others not engaged in the Town-Country match worthy of serious consideration are Doneghue and Kingston; Summed up, the team, in the writer's opinion, will I come from the following twelve players,: —Dempster, Worker, Lowry, Foley, Lambert," Jairies, M'Girr, Badcoek, Bernau, Brice, Naismith, and Massey.

Old Boys and Hutt.

The concluding day's play in the Hutt-Old Boys' match at the Basin Beserve was again full of interest, despite the fact that Old -Boys improved their position by gaining a fair lead on the first innings. This camo about largely as the result of a rattling good display of batting by Lambert, with K. Tucker as a valuable partner. Lambert knocked up a century "in fine style, adding 71 runs to his first day's total of 50". Against such a strong bowling sido as Hutt, Lambert's effort was- of very high order. • What a great thing it would have been for this player to have had the experience of a tour with the New Zealand team in England!

Except that Tattersall and M'Girr made fair scores, there was nothing much of note in'Hutt's second innings. Tucker, who has been doing particularly well vdth the ball this season, was again on. the job for Old Boys, and in accounting for six wickets he brought his side within reach of a four-pointer. Lambert was also prominent in the attack. The_ combined,efforts of these two players in the match meant a great deal to "Old Boys.

Bun-getting was not an easy matter for Old Boys, when they set out to get the -71 required for an outright win. Hutt were as keen as ever until after the fall of the fourth wicket, when lapses in the field were of advantage to Old Boys, who then ran out winners by six" wickets. ■ ' . ''

Institute and V.M.C.A.

There was a big improvement in T.M.C.A.'s batting performance on the second day of the match with Institute at ttiV Basin Beserve, and as a result Institute were unable, after their excellent start, to get the full win which would have kept them a point ahead of Old Boys for the championship. . ' Coupland and White in the .first innings, and Lamason in the second, gave oxcellent batting displays, and scored solidly at the expense of the'lnstitute attack, in which Massey did not meet with any success. Rogers and Prince divided all the wickets in the first innings,' and Dempster and Ward were the effective bowlers in the second innings so far as it went, Bogers on this occasion being expensive. Massey had an off day. With Coupland and White now showing something like true form, Lamason back again, and other members of the team giving promise of better performance than in previous' matches, Y.M.C.A. should appear to better advantage during the second part of the season.

■University's Success.

After making a rather poor showing at the commencement of the season, the University eleven is at last meeting with some success. The students obtained another four-pojnter, when they decisively defeated. Wellington at the Lower Hutt Eecreation Ground by nine wickets. .'Varsity were not at their usual strength, A. M. Hollings and E. M'Leod being unable to take the iiold. Hollings is recovering from an illness, and it is unfortunate that he will be unable to assist Wellington in the representative match against Canterbury. Agamst the 'Varsity team, Wellington were disappointing. They got together a very modest total in their first innings, and 'hopes of them doing better in the second innings were not realised. Wellington were all out for 132. To fhis total H. E. Burton and A., M. Cousins with 35 and 3S not out respectively, were the principal contributors. Airey, who on the first day top-scored with an attractively compiled 54, was unable to get going on Saturday.

Nelson again played a prominent part with the ball for 'Varsity. . His figuvea for the match .were: Wellington, first innings, six wickets for 56; second innings, three wickets for 38. Veitmeyer and A. Tripe also gave good assistance in the bowling department.

„'Varsity were smart in the field, and R. H. C. Mackenzie ;,ave a good display behind the wickets. In neither of Wellington's innings did extras figure on the score-sheet.

Kilbimie And Midland.

Having compiled 557 runs for nine wickets down on the first Say of the match against Kilbimie played at Kilbirnie, Midland declared and attempted to gain a four point win. They were successful in making short work of tho local batsmen in the first innings. In the secend, however, they were not so well rewarded for, after the fall of five wickets, the defenders rallied and they

were able to hold out long enough to save an outright defeat.

The fall of the Kilbirnie wickets was checked by the partnership of W. Christopherson and Algar. Solid play brought Kilbirnie 'a total up to 80 before Algar was dismissed. W. Christopherson continued, and towards the end, his play livened up considerably, scoring from good hits to the boundary. He had hard luck in being caught when one run short of his century. Baker was the most successful bowler in the first innings, taking four wicketa for 11 runs. In the second, he did not fare so well, however, as he only bagged one for 50.

Kershaw, Brown, and Sykes put up good scores for Kilbirnie. Brown compiled the highest score in the first innings but did not do well in the second, Kershaw and Sykes playing steady games in both innings. • , A feature of the bowling was the number of maiden overs in the first innings. Grant, who took one wicket for 29 had 14 overs of which six were maidens. Judd, who was also successfull with the ball, had 16 overs of which nine were maidens, Baker having three maidens in eight overs. Bowling honours for' the second: innings went to Patrick, who took four wickets for 76 runs: . . ■ .

Petone and Thorndon.

Petone have had close finishes -in' each of their engagements to'datej and in the "matches' against Y.Sj.C.A. and: Hutt, missed outright wins by the. nar-^ rowest of margins. Last Saturday .aw another exciting ending in the game against Old Boys, but on this occasion the last wicket fell just before time. Only four wickets were down at 7 o'clock, but; Roberts and Mason went soon afterwards, and the remaining Thorndon batsmen offered ltitle resistance. ,i

.In this match Finlaysou put up another fiiio all-round performance. He took ten wickets for 69 runs and scored 29 and 46. In the four matches to date he has scored 195 runs, with an aver-: age of 32.5, and has taken 33' wickets, with an average of 9.3 runs' per wiekefc. Brice also indicated that he is getting, into form. He secured a-bag of eight wickets at a cost of less than 8 runs each, and in the second innings, when Petone wanted runs quickly, he went out to open the innings. He was just short of the half-century mark when dismissed, but his rate of scoring was much slower than usual.

Bundle gave further evidence that his previous failures were not a true criterion of his ability, and he used some good scoring shots in compiling 37 runs.

The most consistent batsman on the Thorndon side was B. Roberts, who carried his bat. through the first innings for 46, and who looked like repeating' the performance in the second innings until he fell to an appeal for lbw.' He 1 gave a ehanceless display on each occasion. . ''■ ■

Mason (32) and Monkhouse (18) were the only other Thorndon batsmen to' make anything like a stand., ■■■;.■

A Midland Eecord.

The score of ,557 for nine wickets made by Midland last Saturday week beats by one' run the club's previous record put up against Rivals on the 9th January, 1897. A photograph was taken of the score-sheet showing the full details of the Midland innings against Bivals, and one of the copies is in the possession of Mr. B. P. Steele, who was then secretary of the' club, and who, strangely enough, was present in an official capacity (that of umpire) to see the old.record broken last Saturday. The outstanding feature of Midland's big innings in 1897. was the.double-cen-tury partnership for the second wicket by Lash and Williams. The latter made 135 and tha former 180, and other scores-were :S. Tucker 9, Warren 22, Lawea 21, K. Tucker 33, B. Blackloek 28, Staples 38, Holdsworth 0, Weybourne 40, Upham 3 not out, and "extras" 47;. total 556. 'A method of dismissal very rare in cricket is shown in the details, Blackloek being.out for "obstructing the field.' An interesting, point about the scores is that many strokes realised five apiece, whilst one: hit realised seven runs. In those^days: much more running between the^ wickets was necessary owing to the length of some of the boundaries; Midland's scorer at. tb'9 time of the record in, 1897 was Mr. I. HyaniSi whose death occur-; red recently. :■''■<•_. '■.'■•;-■

Canterbury's Team.

It is not.likely that Canterbury's team to meet.. Wellington will differ _ much from that chosen to play against Otago,; as follow:—J. Newman, M. L..-Page,: W.E. MerrittjD.C. Nixon, R. Bead," W. Hayes, A. W. Roberts, J. Jacobs, I. M, Hamilton, C. Oliver, a.nd G. E. Gregory, with C. E. Evans as twelfth man. The Canterbury selectors have also noted C. G. Crawford, W. E. Cunningham, and C. S; Gibbs,in view of the tour to the North Island. A southern writer makes the following comment on the selection: The attack is in the capablo hands of Merritt, who is the outstanding bowler in New Zealand to-day; the English professional, J. Newman, a dangerous medium-pace bowler; and Read. Change bowlers are M. h. Page, who seemingly needs a sticky wicket-and who then 1 might clean up a side, and D. C. Nixon. Several others are capable of lending a hand, but the team lacks a left-hander spin bowler. A fast bowler is also a need. The dropping of W. Cunningham, justified on form, will yet arouse criticism. Cunningham has been too valuable a man to be dropped lightly, and he is still a long way from being a veteran. He has been a match-winner, and for a time was supreme in New Zealand. If lie were to replace a regular bowler the choice would have to be Read, who has been a stalwart for mahy.i years, and who is a veteran. No one will dispute the value of the services read has.;given in the past, and he -is still useful. But he has never-been; a match-winner, as a study, of his record in representative cricket each season goes to show. In their thoice between Cunningham and Bead-'-doubtless the two would be considered together—the selectors have picked on present form, and so Bead naturally gets the preference. Cunningham will have to wait his chance. .

. Not only in the Canterbury team, but in others they have picked as well, the selectors have ignored J. M'Ewin, a slow trundler. M'Ewin bowled excellently for The Rest against New Zealand, and. there would be precedent in having two slow bowlers in a team. Merritt has. more spin than M'Ewin, who, however, flights the ball more. So the two would provide some variation which might be fruitful. M'Ewin is also batting well. One of the change bowlers, Nixon, is batting in fair form, but'his trundling is not up to last season's standard.

The batting should be good, although the two colts, A. W. Eoberts and I. M. Hamilton, have not shown their best form this season. The last innings by C. Oliver might, have brought him back to form, but he is a trifle uncertain. Jacobs, a colt, is a stylish batsman, who for some time has been recognised as a certainty, sooner or later, for big cricket. There is plenty' of batting ability in the team, and Hayes, who is batting well, is the wicket-keeper needed to deal with the bowling of Merritt. Tho fielding should be very good; perhaps better than it has been for years.

JUST A COLD

May easily lead to serious and painful troubles, such as bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma,: pleurisy, or■■ consumption. At the first sign of a cpuijh or cold, take Nazol. This prompt attl certain remedy will penetrate every tiny passage of the nose and throat and destroy all harmful germß. Let Nazol protect you.—Advt.