CRICKET.

Evening Star, Issue 21035, 24 February 1932, Page 8

CRICKET.

As the South Africans’ itinerary does not include Dunedin, Otago’s season of representative cricket ended yesterday. It was not an'inglorious end. Possibly the beaten side got as much satisfaction out of the game itself as tho victors. For Wellington, however, the destination of the Plunket Shield hung on the issue, and it was won from Canterbury in what, without offence, may be termed a rather scrambling fashion. Though Otago has lost two out of its three shield fixtures this season there were redeeming features about each defeat. At Lancaster Park,' as well as this week at Carisbrook, a heroic recovery was made from a rather desperate position, mainly' through Blunt’s triple century score. Now it is a Dunedin bowler who has helped to make history for his province in a game which goes down in the records as a loss. Dickinson has previously shown that he can rise to an occasion. Against the cream of Australian batting, for example, some three or four years ago he captured seven wickets for 96 runs in an innings of 454. In comparing bowling performances it has to bo remembered that the express bowler usually has to make his name when conditions are all in the batsman’s favour for every other .kind of bowling. When the wicket is soft his special attribute of pace from tho pitch disappears, no matter what his pace through the air. This is well illustrated by. comparing Dickinson’s effectiveness on the Monday and Tuesday of this week. Though a dropped catch in the slips robbed him of a deserved victim on Monday, he was, through no fault of his own, not dangerous, and the deadening effect of the ground on his deliveries was shown by the way in which James, particularly, hooked anything, short of a length. But yesterday afternoon ho was an entirely different Dickinson. The wicket for the fourth innings of the match had rolled out surprisingly well —so well that not a few people half expected to see Wellington hit off the sixty runs required without the loss of a wicket, and prepared to console themselves for a ten-wicket loss by seeing New Zealand’s great batsman Dempster get possibly a half-century of the runs. But Dempster early fell to a lightning catch in tho slips, and thereafter Dickinson was very definitely on top. The successive rattles among the stumps added thrill to thrill around the ring as the spectators were hustled swiftly on to the climax of a truly exciting finish instead of a tame and disappointing ending. It was sheer pace, combined with an accuracy which conceded only a minimum of balls on the leg side, which worked the havoc. The ball neither shot nor kicked. It is unfortunate for Otago that Dickinson’s services arc not more often available :u her more important fixtures away from home, and to this presumably one must attribute the fact that he is not invariably chosen in any New Zealand representative eleven as a mainstay of tho attack, quite apart from his batting and his great activity, keenness, and sureness in the field. There have been some remarkable fourth innings collapses at Carisbrook not attributable to the state of the wicket. One I'emembers a Melbourne eleven captained by Armstrong which only time saved from sensational defeat. One also remembers how Callaway and Frankish clinched a Canterbury win by mowing down the Otago batsmen. This week the Wellington team had indeed an anxious time when at one period six men were sent to the pavilion for the addition of only four runs, until the not very elegant winning hit was made by the Wellington captain with only two wickets in hand. It must again bo emphasised that in their second innings Wellington had a much better wicket to bat on than Otago had in theirs. The methods resorted to by Otago batsmen in a vain attempt to play the peculiar-actioned lefthanded Nelson bowler, Newman, were proof enough of the assistance he was getting from the pitch. But, now that all is over, one must realise that it was during Wellington’s first innings that Otago threw away a winning chance. Apart from the comparatively early dropping of James in tho slips and the inexplicable neglect of Blunt as a bowler until the eleventh hour, there seemed to be something fundamentally wrong in the placing of tho field. Never in an afternoon’s cricket can one recall so many mis-hits falling in safe gaps in the field. The cricketdulling leg theory may have been a necessity under the circumstances—though figures hardly bear this out—but tho trap was so obvious and entailed such close grouping that naturallv the batsmen took every opportunity to send the ball to the vast open spaces, and, if by the air route, it entailed no risk. How, during Wellington’s first innings, old Otago crickctprs

must have longed for a Fisher or a Torrance! Unfortunately on no left-hand bowler hero has fallen the mantle of that groat pair, who made the batsmen play every ball and never sent down a long.hop or a full toss as an occasional sop. Nor is Otago’s batting so strong that the study of safe running between the wickets is so neglected as to involve the sacrifice of valuable batsmen.