CRICKET FOR GIRLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20171, 4 February 1929, Page 10

CRICKET FOR GIRLS.

MATCHES AT REMUERA,

FIRST OF THE COMPETITIONS. CONSIDERABLE APTITUDE SHOWN Cricket as a summer sport for girls may now be said to have reached maturity in Auckland. Nothing could have been quieter or more informal than the opening of the first season at the girls' sports grounds at Remuera on Saturday, but if the grand old game grows'in feminine favour as it has done in England the event will yet be looked back upon as one of historic significance. Cricket has been played for years past in the girls' secondary schools, but this is the first time it has been seriously taken up by a group of clubs outside the schools. These clubs have formed themselves into the Auckland Girls' Cricket Association. Much practising has been going on at Remuera Saturday after Saturday, and a few informal games have been played, but it was not until last Saturday that a regular series of competition matches was inaugurated. Two grounds were marked out, and on one Technical College Old Girls tried conclusions with Grammar School Old Girls, while on the other one of the two Y.W.C.A. teams was pitted against the Hockey Association's Cricket Club. Those who are wont to take the attitude that cricket is a somewhat rough and violent game for girls would have found nothing to alarm the most timid soul in the matches on Saturday. As the game speeds up with continued practice the players will all the time be learning how to protect themselves better, and so the difficulty will right itself. Playing the Real Game.

Of course, it must be understood the game is good old-fathioned, full-blooded M.C.C. cricket without any concessions to any alleged weakness or shortcomings of the sex. Undoubtedly the lithe, suntanned, free-limbed athletic looking girls that took their part in the games on Saturday would have scorned any suggestion of a shorter pitch or a softer ball or even a lighter bat. They wanted to play cricket and they played it. There is every probability that before long some of them will play it well. On the whole it would appear from the general run of play that hitherto more attention has been paid among the girls to batting than to bowling or fielding. Most of the bowlers were content, to send down slow " underarms" varying between " grubbers " and full tosses, and only very few were at all at home in delivering an overarm ball. One could not help feeling that any girl who was persistent enough to master the art of sending down a straight, good length, overarm ball would win an average that would turn a Tate or a Larwood green with envy and earn the time-honoured title of " destroying angel." Not a few of the girls showed skill and precision in swinging round on to balls pitched to leg, and indeed most of the scoring seemed to be done on that side. No Pear of the Ball.

Whether they felt it or not nobody betrayed the least nervousness of the ball, and frequently a wicketkeeper would be seen standing well up with bare legs and no pads. That was when the wicket-keepor-in-chief, with the pads on, was busy bowling from the other end. . The subtle science of running between tho wickets is one of the last things the good cricketer learns, and this is a department in which the girls might easily profit by a little good coaching. Many of them paid for their ill-judged rashness by being run out, while those who erred on the side of caution—and they were the more numerous—paid by losing good runs they might easily have had to their credit. The common gibes at the inaccuracy of woman's aim would have had no point at Remuera on Saturday, for it was no unusual thing to see the wicket thrown down from a considerable distance and at an awkward angle. Most of the lady batters began very cautiously, but once th4y had survived an over or two several of them displayed real power in their strokes. One girl, in particular, showed she could make a wristy cut to the boundary or bang, a full toss to leg for four like a tradesman. Girls with school experience of cricket and girls who have learned accuracy of eye and hand with a hockey ball had a distinct advantage over the others, and it is players so trained that promise to be the backbone of most of the team. Opportunity for Coaching. There has been some attempt at coaching the girls by male friends, but it is evident much more could be done in that direction. Placing the field, for instance, is an nnknown art that would readily be learned, and most of the bowlers would quickly profit by a hint or two. A number of them lost a full yard by delivering the ball from well behind the wicket. Most of those fielding do not vet appreciate that the difference between fielding a ball cleanly and merely fielding it is usually a run every time and sometimes a wicket.

It was a happy, wholesome afternoon's sport, brisk and vigorous without being strenuous, interesting and even exciting without -being risky, and no one could witness it without wishing success to the pioneers who have established the Auckland Girls' Cricket Association. How safe it was may be gauged from the fact that mid-off might be seen fielding scarcely a couple of yards from the face of the bat.

This is believed to be the first time that cricket has been established on a firm footing among girls in the Dominion, and its future will be watched with sympathetic interest both by friends of cricket and of young womanhood. The sport is costing the girls as much as £IOO a year in rent, but they are enthusiastic about it and are confident, with the help of friends, of seeing it through successfully.