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New Zealand Mail, Issue 771, 10 December 1886, Page 22

With regard to the cricket match against the Australians, we deem it worth while to offer a few suggestions with a view to avoiding any future repetition of so melancholy a fiasco. The Wellington team may be regarded as virtually beaten, for although the match was left unfinished for want of time to play it out, it may fairly be assumed that the Wellington men were very unlikely to pull off even the minority of nearly 300 in which they were left in the first innings. Had the match been played out, the Australians would almost certainly have been victorious in one innings; at any rate, the chances were overwhelmingly in favour of such a result. This unfavourable position for Wellington was not due to any shortcomings in batting. On the contrary, the twenty-two acquitted themselves very fairly in this respect, and managed to run up a respectable score. They put together 182 as against 178 made in the first innings against the Australians bj the Canterbury eighteen. Yet when the games were drawn Canterbury was almost as much justified in expecting a victory as Wellington a hollow defeat. The difference was due solely to Wellington’s inferiority in the field, which enabled the other side to score 475, whereas had the fielding been reasonably good, the innings could have been cut down to less than one half that score. It was the weak and inefficient fielding of the Wellington men that enabled their opponents to pile up so prodigious a total. There were a few honourable exceptions to this careless and lethargic style of play, but its general character was as we have described. Here, then, we get at the root of the whole. The Wellington batting and bowling were very fair. The Australians played a strictly defensive game, and evidently felt I they could not take many liberties with the bowling it that were backed up by decent fielding. But it was not, and “ hence these tears!” The fielding was bad Bimply and solely from lack of sufficient practice of the proper kind. “ Net ” practice is the curse of Wellington cricket.

Men study batting or bowling by the hour together, but leave the equally important fielding to be done by a net or by any stray small ;.boys who may happen to be loafing about at the time. Such a method as this may make a batsman, but certainly not a cricketer. A batsman who cannot field is generally of less use than a player who can 'field but not bat. It used to be a cricketing maxim, “Take care of the bowling and fielding in your choice of an eleven, and the batting will take care of itself.” Instead of spending the greater part of their time in batting practice, it would have been far better had the chosen twentytwo devoted themselves wholly to fielding, putting in the “ next-best ” Wellington eleven day after day, and letting them bat as well as they could while the twenty-two bowled and fielded for them. In that way the team would have obtained just the kind of training they really needed. Again several runs and wickets were lost by Wellington through the defective arrangement as to running, and especially as to “ backing-up ” by the non-hitter. By failings of these kinds the match was thrown away, and it is to be hoped that the severe lesson, in the shape of hard leather-hunting and popular derision, which was administered to our cricketers on Thursday, will exercise a salutary influence on the future of Wellington cricket by convincing them that no other merits of play will avail if fielding be neglected, and that there is no “ royal road ” to excellence in this particular—that nothing but assiduous practice and unremitting attention will secure the desired result. The services of a competent professional “coach” would also undoubtedly be beneficial, but much more depends upon the cricketers themselves. The secret of success in cricket, as in most other things, lies in genuine hard work. s#' ■; a '■ S