LEFT-HANDERS IN SPORT

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 4 May 1935, Page 13

LEFT-HANDERS IN SPORT

SUCH BATSMEN A NUISANCE VICTORIAN SIDE OWNS SEVEN GOLF “SOUTHPAW’S” SUCCESS . Recently it was reported that the town of Iviqta placed in the field against Nhill eight cricketers who were left-handed, hut that hill Avoir the match by 20 runs. It was not a great defeat, for Xhill is a, far more important centre than Kiata, and would, as a rule, win with ease. I daresay, too, the- Nhill team included three 01 four “southpaws,” for the a\'erage country team embraces a third part of left-handers, simply because that is the proportion of left-handers thar obtains in country districts (writes H. Gullition). The Kiata number of eight left-handers is not a record. I have no doubt that there have been, and are, teams composed wholly of left-handers. I have known a team of which all but one AVere left-handers. It was the best ceam in its competition. That Avas the Templestowe eleven of a feiv years ago. It Avas significant that they Avere the most countryfied side in the group o. eight teams uliich constituted the IT porter district competition. What a side it Avas, Avith a splendid captain, a fine Avieket-keepor and an endless variety of boAvling.

SPLENDID SIDE. It must not be overlooked that the triumphant Victorian cricket team ot this season Avas composed of seA r en left-handers and only four rign. handers, ancl that they failed only onci to obtain an outright Avin. Let- us nominate this splendid side of left-handers —Darling, O’Brien, Lee, Bromley, Barnett, McCormick, Fleetwood-Smith, with Ebeling, Rigg, Scaife, and SieA'ers. It included the best left-handed ooAvler in Australia, Fleetwood-Smith (14 Avickets) and the left-handers d’Brien and' Lee Avere the highest scorers. A similar thing happened in Sydney a feAV years ago, Avhen, I think, the BandAvick club Avon the premiership carrying half a dozen lefthanders. Dr Leonard Williams’ comments on the subject in the “Empire ReA'ieAV,” which Avere quoted in the “Camera Supplement last Saturday, are illfounded. “Left-handers,” he Avrote, “certainly haA'e draAA'-baeks. A lefthanded bat, for instance, is an unmitigated nuisance, and the peculiarity is said to haA r e cost more than one man his ‘blue.’ But it has countervailing advantages, one of Avhich is that it is easier for a sinistral to become something akin to ambidextrous than for a dextral. To take another instance from the cricket field, it is by no means seldom that a left-handed player can throAv in equally aa’cll Avith either hand, a fact Avhich lias proved disastrous to many a batsman Avhen trying to steal a run because the ball has gone to thq field’s left-hand.” Vernon Rnnsford or E. H. Bromley, for instance, might bo expected to do the trick Avith surprising celerity. Dr Williams also informs us that the prevalence of sinistrals in Britain is less than 4 per cent, of the male population. Yet it is an astonishing fact that from those four per cent, could bo selected a cricket eleven virtually equal to Avhat might he selected from the 96 per cent, of right-handers. Let us nominate such a team—Chapman, • Woolley, Leyland, iPaynter, Nicholls, j Langridge, Dacre (or Mead), Verity, I Voce, Clark and George BroAvn. What, would Dr Williams say to this array of left-handers, or even to the Victorian elecen of this year, Avith its seven left-handers? In either event, “unmitigated nuisance” Avould he meaningless, because he would have more sini3trals than dextrals.

PREJUDICE IN BRITAIN. So great is the prejudice in British golimg circles against the left-handei mat the most extraordinary precautions were taken to preserve to P. G. micas, the youthful tuampion, his priceless gift of originality. A left* nantler, he went from London to Carnoustie, and easily won the British boys’ championship, which England nad missed seven years Tunning. He was the only sinistra! entered, although, if the truth were known, several of the candidates probably were naturally more fitted to play from tlieir left sides than from the right. Mr J. Bernard Markes helped Lucas by contributing an article to the “Morning Post’’ entitled, “Hope for the Lefthander in Golf.’’

There was, he wrote, a conviction too widespread that a left-handed player should never be a great champion. He quoted the case of Len Nettlefold, the Tasmanian golfer, who did' very' - well in the championship of 1927 for a golfer who had only just reached his majority. In his first business round ho equalled the record of St. Andrews. Mr Markes added: “Let then our left-handed hoy continue undiscouraged. Science states but. theories; he is a living fact. He has only one enemy to fight—a predominantly right-handed world. We must strenuously resist all attempts to make him a right-hander. So if there he in this country such a hoy let him grow in such knowledge anti in stature for the next few years, and by about 1940 wo may see a great and British left-hand-ed champion.” This lad, P. G. Lucas, now at the age of 19, led the victorious Cambridge team to victory against Oxford, and Mr G. Greenwood, in the “Daily Telegraph, predicts, that, in all probability he will win the amateur championship while an undergraduate. Lucas is the son of the secretary at bandy Lodge, and Mr Markes is the managing director of that club.