FIGHTING FOR TRIP.

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 18, 22 January 1938, Page 23

FIGHTING FOR TRIP.

hat it was a purely futile attack.. The jatsmen tried in vain to reach it, or watched it go by disdainfully while the exaggerated leg-trap .fieldsmen stood idle.. Mulcock's bowling was bad enough, but worse was to follow in the visiters' batting on the Monday.

There was never a, suggestion of challenge to the task'that Auckland had set their opponents. For two hours the batsmen carried on a desultory stonewall. They waited for the runs to come, and 56 was the result, and the goal which Auckland had set was still 500 runs away. The bowlers dominated the game simply because the batsmen woud not try. And that, too, by players from a province which had adopted one-day cricket to brighten the play in the hope of making cricket a spectacle. There was only, one hope for Canterbury—that rain would cause the "abandonment of the game. Fortunately that did not happen. And then in the afternoon the Auckland bowlers deservedly took command. A rot set in. Towards the end of a day, which will long be remembered as one of- the most inglorious in Shield, history, the batsmen threw their wickets ■ away. There were,; no regrets' when the farcical display came to an end with still 'a day left for play. :But one .da*y of that type of cricket was more than enough for the few spectators who lolled in the sheiier of the : pavilions or braved the enervating * sunshine on the terraces.

CLARRIE GRIMMETT'S

CHANCES

Clarrie. Grimmett seems determined to let the Australian selectors know that he is not yet finished with as.a bowler and that they will have to have many thinks before they decide to leave him out of the team for England. On what he has'shown this season he and Bill O'Reilly are still the two best bowlers in Australia, as they we're in England four years ago, and in South Africa two seasons ago, states v the "Sporting Globe."

In the past nothing that Grimmett could do surnjised us, and now the same thing applies to O'Reilly. Grimmett, however, is not going to allow his rival to do all the surprising. Their bowling in the Shield game in Adelaide has been among what are sure to be the' highlights of the season. They arc the type of men who cannot be kept down.

O'Rcilly's feat of taking nine South Australian wickets.in the first innings is a remarkable one, and' a record for a New South Welshman .in these games. He has been in wonderful form all the season, and in this game seems to have had all the batsmen, from Bradrrian downwards, completely in his toils. That he could keep such a batsman as Bradman down as he did is a great feather in his cap, and the other batsmen could do nothing with him. Surely there can be no doubt about O'Reilly being the" greatest bowler of his type in -the world.