CRICKET IN AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13649, 17 January 1908, Page 4

CRICKET IN AUSTRALIA.

Colonial sympathies naturally go to colonial teams and New Zealand will be only less' pleased than Australia itself at the winning by the Australian team of two of the series of five test matches, three of which have now been played. Conclusive as was the last victory of the Australians, the series from the start has been one of the most sensational and exciting in the longannals of the great game. Time and again has victory wavered in the balance ; time and again . has threatening defeat been avoided by sturdy play and by the unflinching courage which never shows to better advantage than in the cricket field. The last match was a remarkable example of this, for the Australian cause was apparently lost when it was saved by the stand made by undaunted batsmen. That the weather came to the aid of the Australians and made it practically impossible for an unacclimatised team to redeem the situation does not alter the fineness of the game, though it happily enables the Englishmen to ascribe their defeat to climatic causes, a consolation which none will grudge them. For never were cricketing laurels more hardly won or more stubbornly lost. Athletics will long feel the stimulus to plucky and straightforward play which has been given by matches in which the defeated were admittedly as good as the men who beat them, and in which both fought to the end in honest and honourable striving for the fortune of the game.