PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Evening Star, Issue 13039, 25 August 1908, Page 3

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

'Early Cricket in Southland.' is an interesting pamphlet of forty-six pages, with ten illustrations, showing the history of the summer game in the southern part of the Dominion, compiled by Mr J. W. H. Bannerman. As far as Invercargill is concerned, it is fairly certain that no cricket was played there before 1860, although possibly it was at Riverton—a much older settlement—before that. In the first match, played in 1862, Riverton (117) beat Invercargill (27). An interprovinteial match was played, in 1863-64 at Dunedin, when Otago (222) beat Southland by an innings and 143 runs, but the next match did not eventuate until 1893-94, and the writer takes Otago somewhat to task for not returning the visit. "In 1863-64 the Southland players had gone to great trouble, expense, and loss of time to play an ihterprovincial match at Dunedin with Otago, but Otago would not reciprocate in any way whatever until 1875-74, when they did send down a scratch club team. In fact, it was not until February, 1894 thirty years afterwards—that Southland was allowed to meet Otago in a real interprovincial, match. This in a large way was responsible for the poor state of cricket in the intervening years." The brochure contains full scores, a descriptive account of the matches and averages, records, etc. Out of twentytseven representative matches Southland has won two, lost twenty-one, and drawn four.v Mention is made of a record in which T. D. Kingsland (who occasionally played for Otago as well) is accredited with twentythree years of "rep." cricket (1878-1900), thus beating Baker and Downes, of Otago (twenty-one years), and P. Wilding, of Canterbury (also twenty-one years).