Flashes From Fields Of Sport Abroad

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7066, 27 January 1933, Page 4

Flashes From Fields Of Sport Abroad

A business firm in Sydney recently “sounded out’’ Maurice Tate, Sussex and English cricketer, about the possibility of his accepting an offer’that would enable him to settle in Australia. However, Tate said that only a few months ago he entered into a renewal of his contract to play for Sussex, and that contract has still about two years and a-half to run. '* ■ * # ’ ■ A Last-Effort Victory. The English Rugby League’s team was outplayed in the first halt" of the match with Wales, -on a bad ground at Leeds. At half-time Wales led by eight points to none. Only once in the first half had England seemed likely to score. After half-time the Welshmen did not maintain their vigorous tackling, and the- Englishmen began scoring. Wales scored, and converted another try, but England won by 14 points to 13, its final try, which was converted, being scored in the last two minutes of the game.

One reason why A. C. MacLarcn does not like the leg-theory attack which has been exploited in Australia by W. Voce and H. Larwood is that it pounds the side of the wicket on which a leg-break bowler works. “Our tactics thus make Grimmett unquestionably a better bowler,” he says. Possibly that occurred also to D. R. Jardine and thus accounted for the omission of the legtheory attack from much of the Englishmen’s bowling in Australia’s second innings in the Melbourne Test. * * Facing A Hard Task. The decision of G. Bayne, of Wellington, winner of the New Zealand amateur mile track championship for the past two seasons, but now in Australia, to become a professional runner, was not quite unexpected, as he was known to be “at outs” with one or two members of the Wellington Centre of the N.Z.A.A.A. But Bayne has turned to the cash ranks at a time when Australia is particularly strong in halfmile ami mile runners for money. Of course, he will be running in handicaps, and he is far from likely to be near the scratch mark, let alone on it, but he will need good marks to win from fields containing fully half a dozen men who can run well under 4.25 for the mile or under 1.58 for the half-mile.

A team of professional Soccer players which the Racing Club dc France sent to England recently was beatemby Arsenal, by three goals to none % Two Englishmen were included in the French club’s team—there are many British professionals in France now. One of these two Englishmen, with the'_ remarkable name of Phoenix, came into violent collision with an Arsenal player. But, unlike the phoenix of fable, he did not rise again; his left leg was broken. Bradman's Century At Melbourne. Commenting on D. G. Bradman’s 103 not out in Australia’s second innings in the Melbourne Test, Jack Ryder, former captain of Victoria and Australia, says: “Bradman’s innings stands out as.one of the best I have seen him play. The Englishmen concentrated on him and allowed him few liberties. He bore the brunt of the attack for the best part of the afternoon. He was not as aggressive as I have seen him, and seemed restrained in the face of the position of the game. Had lie been supported he might have had a merry time, for he never looked like making a mistake. His timing was excellent, and he tempered aggression and strong driving and pulling with sound defence.”

It was ironical that when Cheshire beat Yorkshire, at Rugby football recently, Cheshire took scrummages 'in preference to line-outs whenever it had the opportunity. Yorkshire was playing under the “first-up-first-down” style forward, Cheshire had fixed formations in the scrummages. Yorkshire’s backs were always dangerous attackers, but Cheshire got the ball in the set scrums.

Wakefield As Three-Quarter. Though \V. W. Wakefield, former Rugby captain of England, and great forward, has retired from first-class Rugby and has become a referee, lie was persuaded to turn out recently for a team raised by his successor as captain of the England team. Dr R. CoveSmith, to play King’s College Hospital.

Wakefield appeared as a wing threequarter, showed a fine turn of speed, and brought off two magnificent tackles which were object lessons in a neglected art. Each time the opposing wing three-quarter a—strong runner — seemed certain to score, but he was put down by Wakefield’s crashing tackle. •Jr *KSweet Music Of Clattering Stumps. As an opening batsman for Australia, and one who has felt very severely the “body-attack” of W. Voce and H. Larwood, J. H. Fingleton was particularly pleased that in the second Test Australia succeeded with an attack from which objectionable tactics were altogether absent. Writing for the Sydney paper which employs him as a. reporter, Fingleton said, of the Australian bowling: “There was no battery unleashed at the batsmen’s heads, there was no policy of attempted intimidation, but always was the attack levelled at the stumps. The sweet music—to us, at least —of disturbed timbers, as they clattered away at all angles, was sufficient justification of our orthodox tactics.”

There is, of course, no official Rugby football championship of London, hut the Blackheath Club, which is captained by C. D. Aarvold, versatile three-quar-ter of the British team which toured New Zealand in 1930, is regarded as the champion club of the metropolis this season. * * * Reproach To Selectors. In taking his seven wickets for 18 runs in the Queensland cricket team’s first innings against New South Wales, at Sydney recently, left-hand bowler C. Hill bowled 17 overs, 10 of which were maidens. Five of the wickets were taken in his last nine overs, and only five runs, in two hits, were made off him in that period. In one or the other of Queensland’s innings Hill got six of the first seven batsmen. Even when allowance is made for the comparative weakness of Queensland this season, Hill’s seven for 18 and five for 49, and his innings of 91, in this match formed a sufficient reproach, to the New South Wales selectors, who had tried him against Victoria and then had dropped him until they had to choose a team for which their Test players were not available.

The directors of the Clapton Orient Club, a well-known English Soccer club, recently put all of their players on the transfer list, in order to try to help the club to meet its liabilities.

S. J. McCabe was suffering from an attack of gastritis while he was playing for Australia in the second cricket Test against the M.C.C. team. This is believed to have affected, his. batting, and also to have caused his missing of a catch, at short slip, from H. Sutcliffe, off C. V. Grimmett’s bowling, when the Englishman had scored 30. of his 52 runs in England’s first innings.

J. Sullivan, captain and full-back of the English Rugby League team which visited Australia and New Zealand last year, is reported to have played as brilliantly as ever for Wales against England in the recent international League Rugby match at Leeds. The Welsh learn, of course, comprised Welsh players for English clubs.

Fred Root, well-known leg-theory bowler, who has lost his engagement with the Worcestershire Cricket Club and has found one in Lancashire League ci'icket, has just revealed that it was at the request of the Worcestershire officials that he moderated his legtheory attack last English cricket season.

The Football Association of England receives some queer protests, but one which two amateur clubs in London seriously contemplated making, a few weeks ago, would have “taken the bun” if it had been sent in. The two teams were called upon to visit a certain allconquering mental hospital side, and each met with defeat. Both clubs maintained that the large number of inmates on the touch-line affected the normal play of their men. It is said that l!’< players were so interested in the abnormal behaviour of the spectators that they let their attention wander from the game.

According to a Queensland paper, there is a possibility that C. S. Dempster will join a cricket team, otherwise composed of New South Wales, Victorian, and South Australian players, which will tour North Queensland at Easter. As Easter Saturday this year will fall on April 15, it would he possible for Dempster to make the tour after playing for New Zealand against the M.C.C. team.

Harry Hopman, who has been the outstanding doubles player for Australia in its recent matches with the American lawn tennis team, probably will not he available to represent the Comipoiiwealth in the Davis Cup competition tliis year.

The captain of one of the teams engaged in a first-class amateur Association football match at Nottingham recently had a swim in the course of the game. Two halls had already found tlicir way into the River Trent, and the third and last hall went in the same direction. Taking off his hoots and shirt, the captain of the home team plunged into the river, swam out, and retrieved the hall. Unfortunately, his action was not rewarded by success for his team.

When he returned to Sydney after tiic second cricket Test, at Melbourne, W. J. O’Reilly was quite modest about his howling feat there. “Just one of those days when a chap feels he can get a few wickets,” lie said, when asked about the last innings of the match. “Yes, it was a great day and the wicket, although a little patchy and worn at the howler’s end, gave Wall, Ironmonger and me little assistance.” .

Lindrum Does Not Like It.

Walter Lindrum does not like the new balk-line rule now obtaining in tournament billiards in Greht Britain. “Whether the rule provide. 3 for the line being crossed every 100 or etery 200 points, he said recently, “it is cramping the game. To order that a man shall send his ball over the line every so often in

billiards is like telling a cricketer that at every third ball he must hit over the boundary. The effect of the rule has been to ban hundreds of pretty moves, such as the masse stroke and the stun shot. All the time the player has to he worrying about the exact state of his score.” -x- * * Pataudi Got Lost. One of the English newspaper representatives with the M.C.C. team in Australia tells a little story which so far as we know, has not yet been published in any Australian paper. On the Sunday of that eventful match in Melbourne in which the Englishmen collapsed m their second innings against an Australin eleven the Nawab of Pataudi and L. E. G. Ames went shooting. Pataudi got lost in the bush, climbed a tree, and fell into a swamp. Two hours went by before Ames found him. The huhters returned with a parrot as their only “bag.” Meanwhile, D. R. Jardinc wos spending a fishing holiday 50 miles away. Jardine returned at lunch-tiny on the Monday, and saw that his teams score was 44 for six wickets. It is sr that the shock was so great that he forgot all his angling stories! # ■5C* * . j The Football Association of England has decided to send an English team to Italy and Switzerland in May, after the English season. This will be the first meeting of England and Italy in international Soccer. A British amateur football team played Switzerland belorc the war, however.

Marcel Morat, Belgian boxer, was unconscious for two minutes after he had been knocked out by Larry Gains, the coloured heavyweight champion of the British Empire, at Bradford, a few weeks ago. Gains took exactly 34scc to dispose of his opponent, and the fight was over before the 5000 spectators realised that it had begun.

Just before the seepnd cricket Test started, at Melbourne, J. H. Fingleton, Australian batsinan, met G. Duckworth, English wicketkeeper, at the dressing.room door. “Picked your team yet. George?” asked Fingleton. ‘ies, and we have got the four fast bowlers in, replied Duckworth. “Oh, well, on with the armour!” rejoined Fingleton, and disappeared into the dressing-room. * * * D G. Bradman says that the ball with which W. E. Bowes got him out for a duck in the first innings of the Melbourne Test was a long-hop, and the worst first ball he had ever had bowled to him. ' ,

On the first day of the cricket Test at Melbourne the huge crowd of spectators was jammed so tightly that not even another small hoy eould have been squeezed into it “with a shoehorn.” The tragedy of the day was that of a man who arrived comparatively earlv, placed a bottle of beer between his 'feet, and could not stoop to pick it up until the crowd was dispersing at stumps. * * * . .

Because ho had an examination m the morning, J. E. Lovelock (Otago University and Oxford University) was unable to run in the two : mile event in the annual relay races with Cambridge University. It is considered that if he had been in that race Oxford would have won it, instead of Cambridge. However, Lovelock arrived,; by airplane, in time to run in the four-mile race—four men running a mile each—and Oxtord won this, with Lovelock running as its last man. Starting on this lap, Lovelock had a lead of about a yard, lie Won as he liked, in about 4.„4. the meeting was at Cambridge. # «■ • p, G. H. Fender, famous Surrey and England cricketer, discounts the suggestion that England had ill-luck in the second Test. “We had all the luck we could expect when Sutcliife was given three innings,” he says. “The only reasonable explanation is that the Australians bowled better than we thought possible.”