WITH WARNER’S BLESSING

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 258, 31 October 1936, Page 11

WITH WARNER’S BLESSING

M.C.C. TEAM IN AUSTRALIA P. F. Warner, who played an important part in the selecting of the M.C.C. team now in Australia, has this to say in a recent issue of his journal the Cricketer: —- “There seems to be a feeling abroad that we have no chance in Australia," he says. “When I come to think of it, I have'known only one team which has left England without the great majority of critics saying that the Australians would ’knock their heads off.’ This was A. E. Stoddart’s 18971898 side, a team which was described as ‘a team of all the talents.’ It contained Stoddart, Ranjitsinhji, MacLaren, Hayward, Storer, Richardson, Hirst, J. T. Hearne, Briggs, Lockwood, J. R. Mason, etc., and it was beaten 4—l!

_ “I hold views the reverse of pessimistic. Strong as the Australians are at the moment, we should at least be able to out-bat them in the second half of the order of going in, and 1 cannot see that their bowling should be so greatly superior to ours. O’Reilly is a bowler whose prowess is entitled to respect, but Grimmett is nothing like so dangerous in Australia as he is here. If FleetwoodSmith recovers from the injury to his bowling hand, he may prove a matchwinner, but, no balance, he would be a rash man who would say for certain that the Australians’ bowling so far as we know it at the moment is so superiorgto ours as to make victory a certainty for them. Maybe I have written optimistically. Like Caesar of old, I prefer to exhort our men to remember their former prowess—and it is worth reminding the pessimists that we have beaten the Australians on the last two tours in Australia.

“May good fortune go with Allen and his men in the day of battle.”