SOUTH TARANAKI CRICKET

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 4 November 1933, Page 8

SOUTH TARANAKI CRICKET

•* V*! A. •••••' » : ' —-- ■ CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS ’two, exciting matche s. , . .... i-, ;'fV- ; • ; h- >5 y K APGNGA’S RECV>RD‘ SCORE

Saturday ‘ last of outstanding interest m the realm of cricket in South Ta-rahaki'and - provided some of those thrills -find dirat coaieentration, of interest which form much of charm and fascination' of the game. Kaponga put ,ftp fi record rcorc for the disfrfbt. of .367 for only eight wickeis%' tn;d' : ibatsmcn retiring:. A feature of the. innings was that the runs were well spread, no fewer than five of the team scoring over fifty each. Kaponga gave HaWera the greatest afternoon of real feather hunting the latter has had and their total will probably not be beaten .for a. long time. ■

. Kaponga have to place a, lot of credit of the win. to the fielding of their team, for half the Hawera batsmen were dismissed 'by catches and several of these Vfeie remarkably smart, and. prove that the team,'is one of the best in .the-com-petition 5 -so far as tHeir work iii the field is concerned. The value of this is often not sufficiently recognised. Their meeting with Old Boys to-day wall be the most interesting in the competition. and should- give an indication of the proba'ble winners for the season. Both teams will be keyed up to do their best. .. -

For Hawera, Bray has been easily tbe most consistent batsman this season, for he has materially helped his side on each occasion he has gone to the wicket. His contribution-on Saturday was particularly forceful and’effective, and to get five sixes and one four in 39 is an extraordinary performance. Jennings showed again that he is one of ;the soundest batsmen of the team, and his 35 -was a really good effort. He can lay on the “wood” when he is in the mood and he did this on Saturday to great effect. :Penny and Jennings are the backbone of the team, although they are two of the veterans and they generally give •them a good start. It was unfortunate for Hawera that Penny wqs just getting dnto his stride when he fell to a great-catch off what was really quite .a..-good., stroke, -though -a little uppish, and Fitzgerald’s safe hands were on the 'way;.. - ’J. '• ■■ - ••'• -G >v • : Wafnes seems to-have a weakness for . getting in front of his wicket, probably because of- his confidence in his strokes, hut he has fallen-twice now to an J.b.wl decision. His wicket is too valuable to his side ta take too many chances. One. hundred pud. one from three batsmen find extras out of a total of 109 does not leave many for eight batsmen to make. This was the contri--Yution of the rest of the Hawera team and .it should urge them all to practise steadily and regularly and so improve their, chance of helping their team. One feels sure they efin do much better with practice. Reg Eden signalled his entry into the season’s play for Kaponga by falling to a capital bail from Giblrn without scoring. Probably he has had little practice, for ho is a fine bat when in form.

Court and S. Betts put the issue beyond doubt with their useful partnership for the second wicket. Each played a typical innings • Court solid and cautious and Betts dashing and quick scoring.

V. Betts, Dormer, Palmer and Pascoe all played good cricket and laid the wood on to much effect. Fitzgerald always goes for the bowling and) .scores rapidly while he is at the wickets. On Saturday Blyth caught him finely off his own. bowling. Hawera fielded very well and. dismissed four batsmen by catches. One of the most thrilling matches seen, on the Hawera ground for many years was that between Old Boys and Stratford A, which the former won by a small margin. It is just one of the matches an interested spectator does not like to miss—two teams fighting hard, one for runs and the other for wickets. Much credit for the close result must he given, to Wilson, the Stratford googly bowler. He went on towards the end and did his best to tempt the batsmen to hit, placing his field accordingly. He was successful, too. in getting three of the wickets that lay between him and victory and he was well backed up by the field. Gover took a Considerable risk in fielding so dose at point, and had the batsmen been of the punishing type he would have been forced hack. One recalls an incident in Wellington senior cricket when a powerful batsman named Moor house,” under somewhat similar circumstances, stopped the play to advise a fieldsman to move back from his place near the wicket. He considered, and rightly so, that there was a real danger and the fieldsman took the advice offered. But Moorhouse was probably one of the finest exponents of powerful square cutting ever seen in Wellington. Stratford made only 113 and, if the Old Boys fielding had been up to tho usual standard, this would probably have been less for several easy chances were missed. It was due to one of these mi»ses that Hall avoided a third very small score, for he has been out of form this season so far and would hjive been verv disappointed had he failed again. He has good strokes and plays correct cricket, but probably even the best have their off-days. It is not often that W. Barker goes so cheaply, as on Saturday, but he fell to Stan. Lav before he had reached ten. The ball was of excellent length and came across a little. Incidentally, •Lav said, in seply to a question, that he 'had moderated his> pace a good deal he used to be quite fast—and was concentrating on length. This surely is advice that might be taken by many of our voung bowlers. Length, they should realise, is the foundation of all good and effective bowling and there is not one of the great bowlers of all time who did not Study this question hard before he achieved greatness. One recalls stories of Hirst, Trimble, Noble, Giffen and hosts of others who practised 1 until they could pitch a hall almost where they liked and could often hit a coin, placed on a certain, spot. No one will ever do much good without length against good batsmen. One has often, seen a medium-paced straight bowler, who had a correct length, stick, up good batsmen and eventually get! their wicket®.

Moloney once more showed what an asset he is to his team by his remarkably fine and timely innings of 53 not out, which was the greatest factor in Old Boys’ victory. He never looked like getting Out and gave only one chance. He plays over the ball when Soing forward -in a way that young atsmen might well emulate. There was not much excitement among the B grade matches except with Opunfike, who showed that they are going to be hard to beat in the competition. They had a very decisive -win. from Manaia-; -Maddook, a recent acquisition, playing a fine innings of 68. They have no losses so far. Hawera are running neck and neck with. Opunake and each so far is unbeaten. Their meeting will be awaited with keen interest. Five of the B. teams have each scored one win, so that the results after the first three teams, are pretty open. Power Board have not quite lived up to the reputation they made in their first match of the season. Green (High School) had rather an extraordinary .bowling average on. Saturday—9 overs, 6 maidens, 4 runs, 4 wickets.

H. Hughes (Oldi Collegians), Fleet and Fairweather (Hawera B), Whitehead (School), Faulkner :(Sbratford B). Maddook (Opunake) and Hobday (Manama) secured the batting honours on Saturday.

AN! AUSTRALIAN VISIT ?r New Zealand will want its full strength against the Kangaroos this, season, says a-Wellington writer. Every itian on the Australian side will be on his mettle to win a place in the tour to England next year, so there will be nothing in the nature of holiday cricket. It can be taken for granted, too, that the wonder batsman, Don Bradman, will be all out to regain his world’s Test individual score record, which Hammond, the great Gloucestershire .batsman, stole from him when he hit up 336 not out against New Zealand last season. Now, when Bradman gets going all a poor captain-can do is to place his men on the boundary and wait patiently until the wonder batsman makes a faulty stroke. Our bowlers this season will not be able to hobble Bradman as Larwood and Voce did in Australia last season, and a they are not allowed to bowl leg-theory there isi no saying to what heights Bradman’s scores in New Zealand may s.oar. This will be Don Bradmans first appearance on New Zealand playing fields and his batting will certainly be one of the highlights of the new season. Who can forget the enormous crowd which aisis©mhl©d ‘fch© hasm Reserve in .September last- just to_ get a glimpse of this amazing boy from Bowral, who had smashed all batting records to smithereens in the Tests m England in 1930? NEWS AND NOTES. Referring to the death of Mr L. G. Hemus, the Auckland “Star” records fin incident in the match, against the Australian team in 1914. The Australians included the then Worldfajnous batsman, the late Mr Victor Trumper. Mr Hemus was given a trial with the ball, and twice Mr Trumper jumped out to drive him. On both occasions he missed the ball, but each time the wicketkeeper failed to gather it cleanly. Other great players in the Australian team were Messrs Noble, Armstrong, Crawford, Mailey, Laver and Dr. Dolling. Mr Hemus played his first representative match for Auckland against Taranaki in 1903, and retired from representative cricket in 1922. During that period he played some great innings for his province, and ended his career with eight centuries against his name and over 2000 runs in Plunket Shield cricket. Players well-known in Australian cricket who are skippers of Melbourne Club teams are W. M. Woodfull (Carlton), H. Elbehng (Melbourne), H, Baring (North Melbourne) and C. Woodfull (Varsity). Canon How, who has just been nominated for the Archbishopric of Brisbane, is a( keen cricketer and is deadly opposed to. bodyline bowling. He considers it Utterly regrettable and opposed to the spirit of the game and says that every effort should be made to prevent its recurrence. In Melbourne there are 20 women’s cricket teams in two grades, three new teams having entered this season. They used to play one-day matches, but tried two days this year. It 'was found that this deteriorated the batting very much and made it slower.

In Melbourne this month the Melbourne Cricket Club applied to the Minister of Lands asking for legislation to secure an additional acre in the adjoining park in order to provide further grandstand accommodation on their ground. The application was vigorously opposed by the Town Planning Association, the members urging that the club should buy the land at a fair valuation in order that the sum might be set apart to purchase land for a reserve on the outskirts of the city. A plea was made that, if the application were granted, as had happened in the past, the area of parks would continue to be curtailed to the detriment of the people’s interests. It was stated that already over 800 acres had been given away for cricket, and in time all public parks would be lost to the people. The question is to be decided next month.

Emphasising that the spirit of the game of cricket must be adhered to in all games played under its auspices, the Transvaal Cricket Board of Control has passed a resolution deprecating the deliberate use of what has now become known as bodyline bowling. Players responsible for “unsportsmanlike play” and the use of howling which is “dangerous to batsmen” will be severely dealt with by the board. This ruling does ( not necessarily reflect opinion all over 'South Africa) concerning tho use of bodyline bowling. The Transvaal is, however, one of the most powerful provinces affiliated to the South African Oicket Association.