OVERSEAS TEAMS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 98, 27 April 1935, Page 15

OVERSEAS TEAMS

CRICKET PROSPECTS

M.C.C. TEAM THIS YEAR

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, April 26.

In the 1935-36 season an M.C.C, cricket team wijl tour New Zealand, and at the end of the 1936-37 season the M.C.C. Test team will spend from two to three weeks in New Zealand after its tour of Australia. Arrangements are almost completed for a visit during the 1936-37 season of a team selected from India by the Jam Sahab of Nawanagar, brother of Duleepsinhji. These announcements were made at the half-yearly meeting of the New Zealand Cricket Council tonight by Mr. A. T. Donnelly, chairman of the management committee. Mr. Donnelly said that although the Australian Board of Control had been very friendly during the past season, it had not been possible to secure a tour of New Zealand by an Australian side. Arrangements had now been definitely concluded, however, for a visit to New Zealand in the 1935-36 season by an M.C.C. team. The Australian Board of Control had very generously agreed to give this M.C.C. team five matches in Australia on its wdy to New Zealand in ttie same way that it had done when Gilligan's team visited New Zealand in 1929. The M.C.C. team would be of similar strength, he expected, to the team that Gilligan led. Its personnel would be announced in the middle of winter, and it was expected that the side would be a most attractive one. The Australian Board of Control had again agreed to give the New Zealand Council a percentage of the gates at Australian matches, which would be against Western Australia, South Australia, JVictoria, New South Wales, and Queensland. It was also extremely gratifying, Mr. Donnelly added, that the M.C.C. and the Australian Board of Control had agreed that the next Test team to visit Australia in the 1936-37 season would come to New Zealand in March. To, do this the Board of Contrpl had agreed to close the-Australian tour a week earlier than usual, and that 1 would allow the Englishmen to be in New Zealand for two or three weeks. llt was hoped that the team would be able to play in each of the four main centres in that time. Mr. 'Donnelly said that arrangements I for a visit of a team selected from all India by the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar in the 1936-37 season had been pracj tically Confirmed, although it was not absolutely definite yet. The team suggested would be a most attractive one, and would include probably several prominent English players. ;i.Several members of the council congratulated the management committee on, the report presented by Mr. Donnelly.;,' It would provide the Dominion with a good measure of interest from overseas'teams. The success of the negotiations was in a large measure due to the fine work of Mr. Donnelly and Mr. Arthur Sims, New Zealand representative in England; -