"ATROCIOUS" WICKETS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19807, 30 November 1927, Page 10

"ATROCIOUS" WICKETS.

CRICKET CLUBS COMPLAIN. COACH EMPHASISES DANGER. PROTEST TO CITY COUNCIL. Letters from clubs, a complaint from the coach, arid general remarks by members, gave rise to a good dea! of discussion on the question of bad wickets at the meeting of the management committee of the Auckland Cricket Association last evening. The W.Y.M.I Club forwarded a letter in regard to the wickets at Grey Lynn Park, describing them as atrocious and dangerous. Several players had been struck with balls which flew high. A similar complaint was read from the Comrades Club. Mr. E. Hovspool stated the Grafton ! Club had sent a letter direct to the Parks Committee of the Auckland City Council in regard to the practice wickets at Victoria Park. Mr. E. H. Bowley, coach to the association, attended the meeting to complain about the practice wickets at Victoria Park. He said they were quite unlit for anyone to play on. There were too many dry spots on the wickets for them to be ever much good, but they could bo vastly improved with attention. The wrong type of soil was there, and it powdered immediately. No wicket could have too much rolling. The previous evening, when ho had been coaching some boys, one of them sustained a cut under the chin from a rising ball, and the consequence was that some of the others left the ground.

Mr. W. S. Smeeton said the University Club had used matting, with very finp results, and Mr. G. Jackson said North Shore was also purchasing some matting. Mr. Smeeton added that as the wickets wore in such bad order so early in the season there was not much hope of improving them. Ho thought the association should seriously consider tho pur chasing of matting. Mr. Bowley said the only remedy was to hold all the practices at Eden Park where the wickets were all right. Mr. E. C. Beale offered the suggestion. that, as the City Council had not provided the good wickets promised, it should be asked to pay for the maitir.g for Victoria Park and the Domain. Mr. N. C. Sneddon said the whole trouble was one of labour, but Mr. Dow replied by saying it would take a whole army of labourers to put Victoria Park in order. A motion by the chairman that matting should be purchased for Victoria Park and the Domain was carried. A remark by a member that No. 14 wicket at the Domain was like the waves of the sea—"terrible where the batsmen stand, but all right in the middle"—pro voked hearty laughter. II was decided to forward copies of the letters to the City Council, together with a letter of strong protest from the association.