THE ASHES

Evening Star, Issue 19329, 16 August 1926, Page 3

THE ASHES

“ENGLAND HAS A TIGHT GRIP” MAILEY'S DAY LONDON, August 14. England has a tight grip on the ashes after having been in a thoroughly bad position at the end of the first innings. That is the outstanding feature of the remarkable play on tl|e first day of the final test. The Australians wore delighted to seo the last Englishman out at 280, but in the last hour the game dramatically swung the other way. To compensate for having the fourth use of the wicket the Australians must need to hold a lead of 100 runs. Will they get them? The day was a remarkable one for the triumph of tho googly. It was Mailey’s day. Six wickets fell.to him, and two to his companion, Grimmett. They were the mainstay of the Australian attack, and, despite their iui-

tial success, it must hare been greatly worrying to Collins to see the manner in which Chapman later threatened to slog them everywhere.

When luncheon came and three of tho.lcading stars—Hobbs, Woolley, and Hendren—had been dismissed for the meagre total of 108 runs after baiting for Ho minutes, England was regarded as_ having discarded the advantage gained by winning the toss, Hobbs fell an early victim to the wily Mailey. Just when he looked in his happiest, inimitable single-stealing mood, a woeful full-tosscr shattered the wicket of England’s greatest batsman. Ho glanced dismayed at his shattered stumps, and held up his hands with a gesture of hopelessness. But the Australian innings brought him some compensation, when Macartney, who ranks with Hobbs in greatness, lost his wicket' by an equally innocuous ball from Stevens.

Gregory, though howling better than in the previous tests of this series, was' unsuccessful until Hendren played one on in the last over before lunch. It was a happy luncheon for the Australians, while England’s supporters looked glumly at the scoring board. The resumption of play saw Chapman all out to win his spurs as captain. The sound of his bat rang found tho Oval, but the splendid outfielding converted the majority of his hard knocks into singles. Nevertheless he hit several spectacular boundaries, and had hard luck to be stumped when one off tho half-century. It was the end of a partnership that was extremely troublesome to tho Australians, because tile fate of the googlics looked overmuch like being scaled. Sutcliffe improved considerably, and gave indications of being tho dangerous Sutcliffe of old, but tho googly won the day.

It must be said here that Collins showed judgment in adopting Bardsley’s precedent of having a silly-point and mid-on to tho slow bowlers. The plan was remarkably profitable, putting a stopper on the single-stealing tactics that were so noticeable at Lord’s when Collins last captained the test team. Tho dismissal of Sutcliffe was a piece of hard luck, following immediately on a slight hump on the face. Tate had a glorious knock of 23 in le&s than fifteen minutes of spectacular cricket until Grimmctt stopped tho fireworks.