ENGLISH CRICKET NOTES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 29 December 1923, Page 3

ENGLISH CRICKET NOTES.

At lost most of the pessimists have some to the conclusion that our cricket is rec-ovoring. It is, without any doubt, liiueli better now than it has been at any time since the war. Tate, of Sussex, is a really good bowler, commanding a fine length, and coming off the •fsiteh very much faster than he comes on to it. But R. Kilner is probably an even greater bowler than Tate. He is certainly our slow bowler in the next Test matches. He has great accuracy of length and apparently as much imagination as had his great predecessor, Colin Blythe. He bowls Avith his brains. So fine a judge as Mr Sydney Pardon,

whose personal experience goes back for many years, regards Roy Kilner as the true successor to Pool and Johnny Briggs. Like them, he is not only "a great bowler, but also a great allrounder. He is a greater all-rounder than even Rhodes ever was. Another pleasant feature of the season lias been the improvement in amateur batsmen, who are now as good as they were in 1914. Our batting generally is good; our bowling, as I have pointed out, very promising; but our fielding at the moment is very weak. In the Test trial match at Lords the J English XI. dropped ten easy catches and then won by five wickets. That is ■ very poor. Our fielding generally com- i pares very badly with that of the West Indies side, who are now concluding a very satisfactory visit. & We regret to announce that Mr Alfred Perry Lucas, the great cricketer, died suddenly at Great Waltham recently, aged sixty-six. Though his career in the crickefc field began half a century ago, Mr Lucas played so long—he captained the M.C.C. at Lord's against the Australian Eleven of 1902, and played his last match for Essex in 1907—that his doings will be fresh in remembrance. He was one of the finest of batsmen—almost unique in his combination of perfect style and impregnable defence. Going to Clare College Cambridge, he won his Blue as a Freshman and was in the eleven for four years—lß7s to 1878. He shared in all the other victories of the great team of 1878, but illness kept him out of the crowning triumph at Lord's against the first Australian eleven. In county cricket Mr Lucas had a varied experience. He came out in 1874 for Surrey, played some years later for Middlesex) and finally, with the view of helping his life-long friend, Mr C. E. Green, threw in his lot with Essex. While in his prime he was chosen, as a matter of course, year after j*iar for Gentlemen v. Players, In these matches he played some of his best cricket, scoring 91 at Lord's in 1878 and 107 in 1882. For England against Australia he appeared four times—at the Oval in 1880 and 1884, and' at Manchester and Lord's in 1884. Mr Lucas was in the truest sense of the word a classic batsman. A master of both back and forward play, he represented the strictest orthodoxy. It may fairly be said of him that no defensive batsman of any generation was better worth looking at. Mr Lucas was not much of a traveller, but he went to Australia with Lord Harris' team in 1878-79.