DOMINION CRICKETERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19740, 13 September 1927, Page 14

DOMINION CRICKETERS.

44 THE CENTURY HABIT." '-TWO,- r -MORAL VICTORIES. RAIN * SAVES WARWICKSHIRE. WEST OF ENGLAND MATCH. BT COLONEL PHILIP TREVOR, LONDON, Aug. 5. Rain certainly saved Warwickshire from defeat by the New Zealand cricketers at Birmingham on Tuesday, July 26. With only three wickets to fall the county still wanted as many as 68 runs £o avoid being beaten in a single innings. 1 - think we can recognise a case of real bad luck there. I admit that the New Zealanders were in a bad position in their match with Yorkshire when jrain stopped further play, but, even so, the defeat of New Zealand then was only » probability. It was not a practical certainty. In this match the threefigure batsmen were G. S. Dempster and C. F. W. AUcott. Now I desire to draw attention to a certain fact to which attention has never, as far as I know, been drawn before. Oversea tours have now been instituted more than 50 years. English cricketers have gone all over the world. Cricketers from all cricketing parts of the world have come here. Naturally a good many three-figure innings have been played by individual cricketers in the course of those tours. But if you look carefully at the records you will find that the century-making has been done by only a few men. • Numerous Century Makers. How many New Zealanders have made scores of over a hundred runs in the past three months, some of them more than once ? Why, the majority of the party ' have done the century trick at least once! And this is the first time these men have played in England. The surprising part of it is that the spell of bad weatherMias not got them out of the hundred habit. It is quite true that for more than 30 years to more than half the Australians and to more than half our English cricketers who have played against one another a three-figure innings has been no novelty, but never in the history of cricket has a side touring overseas for the first time contained so many dominant and effective batsmen as the present New Zealand side. I am. not Saying for a moment that m the matter of technique this New Zealand side is anything like the equal in batting of some tsf the great Australian sides, notably those of 1899 and 1902. Those two sides wer.e, in my opinion, the greatest batting sides there have ever been—better than .any English batting side that" has been got together The claim I make for the New Zealanders is this:.. That . they have more batsmen capable of making a hundred runs fast thah any team I have known, and I maintain- that pace of scoring is not mainly contingent on quality of bowling/ Temperament and Conviction. Wh&i •A. P F: Chapman gets a hundred he gets it f fast. Indeed, let < him trv to. get it slowly and he won't get "it "at all When Hearne makes a hundred he • invariably gets it slow. I recently saw Hearne gfef 13.0 not out in in a test trial match The wicket was ridiculously easy. and the bowling opposed to him only moderate in quality. Yet it took him nearly five hours to get those runs. It is temperament and conviction that count in these matters, and both By temperament and conviction the New Zealanders with just an exception or two are fast scorers It follows, therefore, that they are essentially three-day-match players. It is for that reason that their future m the cricket world is so bright. In England the professional is slowly, but surelv, ousting. the amateur, and the Eercentage of fast-scoring professional atsmen decreases steadily each™ year. Hammond is our 1527 swallow, but it takes more than one swallow to make a summer. The voung men in Australia •who are- forcing themselves into test match teams are of the stodgy type. In South Africa the outlook is not encouraging at all, but even then it is not the hitting batsman who finds favour. " Winning Goods in Stock." You may retort: "You people in England -will give way and sanction the unlimited. time match. Where we poor New Zealanders- be tnen 1 1 answer, "Never." The control of cricket at any rate is in -the hands of the amateurs of this .land, -even if its batting policv is not- We shall never sanction the unlimited time match as a general institution.' We know that it is opposed not merely to the history, but even to the principles and the spirit .of .the f ame _of all games, in fact. So let New ealand cheer op The . New Zealanders have - match winning goods rn sticky but they have only just opened their shop -They are, now perfecting their arrangements for delivery. TBe Weather again treated the New Zealanders badly' when they played against :tbe West of England, and it would not be a misuse of terms if 1 called this drawn game a moral victory; for the tourists. Owing to rain there : was no play on 'what should have been the first dav of the match. Consequently the fixture which it began on the Tnursdav became automatically a two-dav match: That is to say, the number of'rnns in the follow-on became 100 instead of 150 The New Zealand captam was qwick tc take advantage of this fact. .His side quickly made 230 ru is for the loss of only half a dozen wickets »nd then he declared the innings closed. _ Another Wet Day. Fortune proceeded to favour the brave. Merritt bowled so well that nine of the ■Westerners had been defeated for less than 100 runs when stumps were drawn for the day Alas! The next day was another blank on account of rain. Still, if, as was probable, the New Zealanders had won this match, it would not have ranked as a great victory, for it was tjot a great side which the West of England put into the field: As a matter of fact, it is quite impossible to get together a strong scratch side nowadays in England The executives of the first-class counties absolutely refuse to let their professionals off to play in any scratch side when they are wanted for the county eleven, and even if that county elpven has not got a fixture the professional who wants to take another engagement for three days is told not to do so, but to take a rest. Nor would any amateur who is wanted bv his county runko him self very popular if he refused and then played for a scratch side. By universal agreement the Gentlemen v. Players match at Lords is an exception to a rule which is now general. The county championship competition holds the land in its grip, and incidentally that is the reason our daily newspapers devote comparatively little space to our present .tourists.