CRICKET.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 12 February 1921, Page 4

CRICKET.

The order of the clubs in the competition is somewhat altered by the result of Saturday's matches, but Manaia are still leading. ■Excelsior's position is improved, and ' the result is vf airly open and in a very interesting position.

Fogarty, playing against JEJtham,' came out with the excellent average of five for 47 in a score of 174. Little's seven for 12 adds another to the list of good bowling averages, of which there have been more than usual this year.

The match Okaiawa v. Midlands furnished quite a number of unusual incidents. The last-named team started badly, .four of the Kest bats' being out cheaply. Then the Worrall-Henderson partnership put a different aspect on the game, the former playing good cricket for 42. 'The score at the end of the first innings- was 149, Henderson staying until last man in, when | lie lost his wicket. . Okaiawa likewise] started disastrously, and -were unfbr-1 tunate in losing Reg. -Penny, their best bat, for a small score. Meuli, going in with the fourth : wicket down, made a sensational innings, quite a record of its own, too. Before going in he jocularly remarked that if he was allowed to stay long enough he would put one over the fence at the southern end of the ground, but no one expected him to put the, resolution into

execution. Strange to say, his first hit ] .went over the ! fence for six. and with his second he repeated the close in another direction. Then he got two fours and two singles. In eight hits lie scored 22. Okaiawa's first innings produced 74. With 75 behind they went in again, but made a better showing. Reg. Penny was responsible for 53, and hit eight fours. .With 41 to get to make a two-innings' victory, and only about 17 minutes to do it in, Midlands ' got to work rapidly, Worrall and Vowless knocking up runs in double quick time. Time was up when the home team required four runs to make it a three-point victory, but Reg. Penny, the Okaiawa-skipper, in a sportsmanlike manner conceded the home team another over, which produced the requisite number of runs with the loss •of two wickets.

England have beaten Victoria pretty decisively, but no doubt th© State team felt the absence of their popular skipper very severely; :

The outstanding feature of the match was the great stand by Henddren and Douglas. The former's in-

nings is most enthusiastically acclaimed

by critics, while the latter played much . more free and forcible cricket than is his wont. There was, as one paper remarked, no "Johnny won't hit today" about him against Victoria. One could have wished that more, of the Englishmen had struck form in the tests.

Punch reports that "the father of a lad charged with embezzlement explained that since the boy was struck on the head with a cricket ball he could not keep a penny novel out of his hands. Speculation is now rife as to -the nature of the accidents responsible for the passion that some people entertain for our more expensive fie-

'The Sheffield Shield averages la Australia show that in five innings (once not out) Armstrong had the great average of 132, with an aggregate of 528 and a best score of 245. Bardsley's figures were also remarkable — six innings, highest score 235, total 648—average 108. A not out innings would have given him a better average than the Victorian captain. No other player is within 25 of the two leaders —Taylor with 83 was. the best—and the next Victorian (Ryder) is 55 below Armstrong.

The death is .announced of William Gunn, formerly a famous international and Notts cricketer, in his 65th year.

A cable message 'from London says that Middlesex is promoting a testimonial to P. F. Warner, the maximum subscription to be a guinea. '

Writing in the London Referee of November 14, "Boris* says : Whatever fate has in store for England in the test matches, it is morally certain that we shall hold a big advantage where wicketkeeping is concerned. Howcurious it seems that Australia has failed to produce a stumper during the last twenty years who can hold a candle to McCarthy Blackham? With the retirement of the Victorian wizard, the entail of colonial wicketkeepers would appear to have been cut off, for ifc can hardly be said that Jarvis, Carter, Kelly, and Carkeek were tip-top exponents of the art. As the. Hon. R. H. Lyttelton said in the Badminton volume of cricket: When the amount

of wicketkeeping that Blackham had to go through, and the number of wickets he got, are considered, our opinion is that the famous Victorian was the finest wicketkeeper to bowling of all paces that the world has ever seen.

Commenting on a. book on School Sports by Gilbert Jessop and J. B. Salmond, the London Times critic sfiys: "The best chapter and the longest is on cricket, and is written by Mr Jessop himself. He explains what can be done and "how to do it. When chasing the ball the fieldsman is advised to overtake it, drop the hand in front of it, and let the ball roll into the hand. His analysis of the processes to be gone through in throwing is equally clear. One sentence in the section about batting makes one long for the summer to square accounts

with an old enemy: 'The good-length ball on the. leg side can either be hit square, forced forward with a straight feat, or glanced to leg.' To think one has been hit in the ribs by an impotent thing like that!"