PLAYING TO BRIGHTEN THE GAME

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1936, Page 23

PLAYING TO BRIGHTEN THE GAME

Cricket tours by teams of the type of

that now visiting New Zealand under Errol Holmes's captaincy go far towards making cricket the grand game it was intended to be. The game our present visitors play is delightfully free, and obviously enjoyed as much by this happy: band of sportsmen as by those who meet them on the field of play and by those who find pleasure in looking on. So well do they play their game that, even though they met a reverse against Wellington their showings in the South Island have caused New! Zealand cricket to be shown up none too favourably. But their doings will be all to thd good, and it will not only be New Zealand cricket that will benefit. England is watching very closely the performance of this team, for in it there is much likely material for more important cricketing engagements ahead. Eight of the visitors, in fact, were called upon by England's selectors last season for the Tests with the South Africans. "INSPIRITING CAPTAIN."

Most of the visiting players were conspicuous figures in first-class cricket in England last season, and there are some glowing references to them in the latest annual of "The Cricketer." Sir Home Gordon, Bart., in a special note, says: "The team gone to New Zealand is probably the youngest that has ever been sent abroad under M.C.C. auspices, only three of the fourteen being over 30. It may be surmised that the six professionals have been specially selected with a view to seeing whether they prove themselves

good enough to be sent to Australia next autumn.

"Errol Holmes should make an inspiriting captain with a good sense of humour and a spirit of playing the game that ought to be contagious.

"Why the Test matches should not count is a mystery locked in officialdom. Out there they certainly will rank, and it is to be hoped that success will reward our tourists. Not that we should grudge victory to'the honie side, for the New Zealanders, were most popular when over here." The choice of E. R. T. Holmes as captain was, indeed, a happy one.

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