LUCK OF TOSS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22196, 5 December 1946, Page 5

LUCK OF TOSS

BASIS OF_VICTORY POWER UNPROVED AUSTRALIAN ATTACK MILLER BEST DESTROYER By W. J. O’Reilly (10 a.m.) BRISBANE, Dec. 5. "Even though Australia won the first test by an innings and 332 runs, there were not many comforting features above the victory from an Australian point of view. "Our batting and fielding are definitely strong, but our bowling strength has not yet been made manifest. The chief destroying agent in the match was Keith Miller, who must surely have been « selected as supernumerary bowler only. Toshack yesterday made up some of the ground which slipped from under him on the fourth day, but he is not yet bowling accurately enough. “Australia can attribute her overwhelming victory chiefly to Don Bradman’s luck in winning the toss. I thins the luck of the toss will play a tremendous part also in the remaining tests., Toshack’s Bowling Improves ’"Toshack bowled much better yesterday. He seemed to realise that it was more important for him to bowl right up to the half-volley position than to keep worrying about spinning the ball. Even so there were still far too many occasions when the batsman did not have to use the bat to defend his wicket. There is no need for a bow.er of Toshack’s medium pace to try to spin the ball much on such a dangerous wicket as this. “The main elements of good bowling on such a wicket are length and direction. Every ball must be bowled on the stumps and pitched up much further than the position of a good length on a good wicket. The wicket itself will impart more devil to the ball than all the spin the bowler can apply. Toshack certainly kept a better directihn'when he bowled round the wicket. It is strange that round the wicket is so unpopular in Australia. I cannot remember one such Australian bowler in the past 20 years. Neither do I think that because many great English .lefthand bowlers went round the wicket such an approach is the hallmark ol the art.

Round-Wicket Bowling

“Bert Ironmonger, the best left-han-der I have seen in either country, used to bowl over the wicket except when the wicket was taking extraordinary spin: Verity did the same in Australia. The idea of bowling round is to counteract spin with the transverse direction obtained. A ball pitching in line with the off stump from a leftarm round-the-wicket bowler would invariably miss the legstump*, therefore it is impossible to get a leg-be-fore-wicket decision unless the ball is spun sharply from the leg side to straighten up. “Yesterday Toshack got two such decisions when he bowled round the wicket. Taking into account that To'bpck’s ’• ■ . . tremely limited—last year was his first season m flrst-class cricket—he certainly bowled well enough to be given a further trial. "Keith Miller, whoe ability to stay the bowling distance was in doubt bowled for well over an hour and. in doing so. probably bowled himself into an extremely busy programme with the ball in the remaining tests. His seven wickets’ effort in the first English innings was a match-winning performance. He can look back with pride on his test debut.

Three Classy All-Rounders

"Australia is lucky to have three classy all-rounders such as, Miller McCool and Johnson; our strength in the all-round department will be a constant menace to England in this series “It was with mixed feelings that I saw S j d Barnes take a brilliant onehanded catch at short leg to dismiss Len Hutton from the very first ball of the second innirgs I was anxious to see how this great batsman could adapt himself to an Aas *.? "> ckv ticket: ho'vev"” Hs p--'- -sal was a great start for our bowlers. “Sid Barnes fielaed splendidly in the close positions. The catch he took from Compton was actually too far from his reach to take cleanly in both hands. The ball hit the tips of his fingers and bounced away to the right. Barnes performed some peculiar type of a diving somersault to take the hall before it hit the ground. None but a really first-class fieldsman could have effected the catch. * Tribe’s Good Impression

"George Tribe made a far better impression here than he did in the Australian XI game in Melbourne. He maintained an excellent length and showed no signs of worry when meeting with punishment. I think he will be an extremely useful man for us if he continues to bowl as he did yesterday.

“McCool and Johnson did not bowl,

“The Australian fielding was really good. It is difficult to find even one weak link. .One excellent feature is the remarkably good returning to the ’keeper. Don Tallon’s job in this direction was made particularly easy. “Last week the Queensland fieldsmen, in their enthusiasm, gave him many anxious moments.

"Denis Compton figured in an interesting incident which brought back memories of a 1932 test against England. Compton played a high-kicking ball to the ground at his feet. The ball spun back and rolled on to the stumps, but the bails were not dislodged. In 1932 I. myself, had, Herbert Sutcliffe early in his innings play one hard on to the base of his wicket; so hard indeed that the ball came back at .least a yard after hitting the wicket. Sutcliffe carried on to make 194, the highest score of his career in tests against Australia.”