CRICKETING WORLD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 110, 5 November 1937, Page 5

CRICKETING WORLD

NEW ZEALAND'S POSITION

"OF NO IMPORTANCE"

(By Telegraph—l'res9 Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, November 4,

"New Zealand, really the only amateur cricketing country extant, is of no importance in the cricketing world at present, and we have to dp everything by negotiating. It is not the same position as in the Rugby world, where New Zealand can. hold her own with any other country," said Mr. A. T. Donnelly, chairman of the: management committee of the New Zealand Cricket Council, at the biennial conference of delegates. "The game has become so commercialised that it looks as if it will be very hard to get another English team to the Dominion, and next to impossible to get an Australian side. Costs are so high and receipts are very low. We must try; however, to get more teams away to England and Australia, as batting in New Zealand has improved out of all knowledge since the tours of England have been begun. In England a Dominion side can give any county a very good game, but in Australia the position is different, as States such as New South Wales and Victoria are as strong as half of England." s Speaking of the cost of overseas tours, Mr. Donnelly said the cost of the first tour to England was about £4500 and the tour in 1931 had cost £1400 more than had been received. The loss on the present tour, if the team had come straight back instead of going to Australia, would have been less than £1000, and it all depended on whether or not gates were good in Australia for the council to break even. They were big losses, he said, but the council could stand them every six or seven years. They wanted tc get an Australian team to New Zealand every two or three years in February and March after the Sheffield Shield games were finished.