NOTES ON THE TEST MATCH.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 6 January 1923, Page 3

NOTES ON THE TEST MATCH.

(By Our Special Reporter). I The first test match has been played, i and some idea can be gained of the re-. la tive strength of the M.C.C. team and j the New Zealanders. In viewing the ' test as a whole, 1 think that one great' fact should be kept in mind—the Eng- ' lishmen play an entirely different type, of game, the type which has been "de-! y eloped througn many generations, it . is not that the New Zealanders are noodles at the game, as some of the Wellington critics appear to think, but that our men lack the knowledge of the finer points of cricket. Our bowling was not really weak, and many a time even the great Maclaren had to be very watchful, especially while Brice and Alcott had charge of the attack. Brice bowled very well indeed on the Opening day, but he was not supported by the field in the way the English bowlers were. Our men d:.d not seem to realise that cricket matches, as with billiards, are lost largely by the scores that are given away. As proof, I may , mention that Chapman failed with the bat, being caught when he had oniy scored a single, but he saved at least 100 runs in the field by brilliant work. ' Now, if a less active player had been in Chapman's place, and tne majority of hard shots which he saved had reached the boundary, New Zealand's first innings score would probably have been 300. So with other fieldsmen on the English side who saved many runs. Had the New Zealanders been fielding against their own batsmen and the Eng- | hsh bowlers, 1 think that the New Zea- j land total might easily have been 4UO. ' Readers will see that the main dit- ■ ference between the teams is in field- , ing. Blunt was easily the best on New Zealand's side and saved many runs, but the fielding of the team as a whole became poorer as the Englishmen's total grew. Not that tnere were many chances given, for the batsmen kept the ball down splendidly, but of their total of 505 runs for eight wickets, at least 100 were due to indifferent fielding. The Englishmen fielded well and tiie X strokes of the New Zealanders were' often anticipated very accurately. ) In the bowling department I liked Briee quite as well as Gibson, but for ti lengthy bowler with plenty of "devil" in it, there was no one on the ground to compare with Freeman, the smallest man on the English side. Freeman had splendid control of his length. -. (shepherd and Alcott bowled very steadily, and had the former been thoroughly fit —he had hardly recovered trom a recent illness —he would probably have kept the English batsmen much quieter. The New Zealand bowling was very fair on the whole, and it was not because of any serious weakness m this department that the visi-j tors made such a big score. ' | In batting, the leading men on the New Zealand side fell down badly, and their failure made the more meritorious the excellent showing by Garrard and Alcott. Stage fright may have accounted to some extent for cmr batsmen's failure, but the main lactor was the Englishmen's fielding. No batsmen could have penetrated that active cordon on the off side which the New Zealanders had to face, and the 1 aider our men hit the ball ' he cantor the ' fieldsmen seemed to pick it up and return it to the wickets. It vas ere of the finest exhibitions of fielding I have ever seen on the Basin Reserve, and Chapman would be hard to beat. The New Zealanders' second innings was a. procession, and Garrard was the only man to show anything like good form on the wicket, which was wearing badly on the last day. There were excellent attendances on each day. and it was clear that greater interest is being taken in cricket than for many years past.