LATE CRICKET NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, 21 February 1901, Page 35

LATE CRICKET NOTES.

(By The Hittite.) At the resumption of cricket last Saturday there was a large attendance of the public and a small total in the collection boxes. There must have been a muster cf 500 onlookers, and seeing that the collection totalled £6 6s 6d the average contribution was just 3ct a head. Having regard to the number of large coins in the boxes, it is fair to say that one person in every three who attended was too mean to contribute at all. llie Cricket Association only "passes round the hat ’ two or three times in a season, and it is lamentable that the public which attends the games should not be possessed of sufficient generosity to respond to the few appeals when they are made.

The matches played were fairly good to watch, but the lamentable “pat, pat” which has lately been creeping into senior cricket in Wellington was again in evidence. Several batsmen slaughtered time for quite a period and then retired caught in the slips for half-a-dozen runs each, 'or less. A notable exception to this rule was Clarke, who laid on the willow hard and scientifically.

Present writer was glad indeed to see Clarke break the spell of ill-luck which has pursued him this season in Wellington. His style at the wickets and his doings at- the nets convinced all who watched him that he had the ability; but- until the rep. match against Auckland he was always “under a cloud.”

Ashbolt did some fine trundling in the match against Midland oil Saturday, and showed that he has at last struck true form. Apropos of bowling, it may be mentioned that the Old Boys disinterred from their ranks a good man in Douglas, who scored' a fine average, two cf the batsmen put out by him being such sterling men as Midlane and Waters. The promoted juniors’ of the Phoenix team —Hickey and Miller—have also earned their places. It is pleasing to see among the selection committees of the senior clubs a disposition to give young players a chance toimorove their mettle in big matches. The matter of fielding continues to be a weak point in Wellington cricket. The Midlanders are good as a team in tiie field, but there is no other club of which, as a whole, the same can be said, although there are brilliant individual fieldsmen in the ranks of each—notably Wilson and Gore, of Wellington, and Leslie, of the Old Boys. A little more insistence by captains of teams on practice in mis respect would doubtless have the desired effect.

An elongated cricketer asked a diminutive ditto on Saturday last why the telegraph board was not being locked after. The short slip told the long one that it- was the youngsters’ duty to look after the board. It was not the words of the reply that riled the questioner—it was “the nasty way ’e said it.” The long one expressed his intention of kicking a portion of the short slip’s anatomy, and was requested to give effect to his threat. He did so, and thereupon a

fistic encounter took place which was only stopped after tlie players had acted as peacemakers and picked the six-foot cricketer up from liis recumbent position on the gravel. In the interprovincial match between Victoria and New South Wales umpire Crockett “called” Marsh no less than seventeen times. It appears tnat it is the fast bowler’s slow ball that is suspicious, and not the fast one, as you would suspect. The public, as usual, strongly resented the umpire’s action, and a sort of mild demonstration set in against him. Crockett also “called’’ Howard. The crusade against- bowlers with “peculiar ’ deliveries, which set in strongly last year in England, has evidently commenced m Australia.

The statistics of Ranjitsinjhi’s career are interesting. He has played in elevenaside matches 297 innings, 37 times’ not out, highest score 275, aggregate 14,702, average 56.54. Altogether the yellow book for 1901 is just the thing for a lever of cricket. The statistics, as I have said.

are sound and full, and the articles too are very readable. It is curious what ideas do arise about catches. In a test match at Home. 1 rumble caught a man out in the slips, and was not aware of it until Trott at point appealed, and the man was erven our. & Out” in the Svdnev “Referee ” says that if eleven players were now selected to represent Australia against England, four or five who were not members of the last Australian Eleven, would probably get a place. The struggle between Dutonman and Briton is likely to be transferred from the battlefield to the greensward. Both South African and Dutch teams are to tour in England next season. On a recent Saturady in Christchurch wicket-keeper Boxhall caught five men behind the wickets. The well-known English cricketer D. L. A. Jephson, writing in Wisden’s Annual” on the subject of English fielding, is severe. He says : —“Taken as a whole' the fielding in 1900 has been bad, thoroughly bad. Men stand in the field today like so many ‘little mounds of earth’ or waxen figures in a third-rate tailor’s shop. The energy, the life, the everwatclifulness of ten years ago is goue, and in their place are lethargy, laziness, and a wonderful yearning for rest. Today a ball is driven through two so-called fieldsmen, and instead of a simultaneous rush to gather it, to hurl it to one end or the other, the two ‘little mounds of earth’ stand facing each other with a lingering hope in their eyes; that theyx will not be compelled tc- fetch it. There are, unfortunately, but a few countries regarded as sides to which the above censure does not apply.” He pays a high compliment to Hirst and Denton, of Yorkshire, A. C. MaeLaren and Tylde.sley, of Lancashire, G. L. Jessop, A. O. Jones, and Albert Trott. Mr Jephscoi regards Albert as “one of the-finest fields at slip or in near proximity to the wicket that- I have ever seen. There is no funk there ; the big, strong hands flash out, they give with the ball, it is held, and many a fine batsman has walked disconsolately away who would have -stayed to all eteniity had he but selected a fieldsman of discretionary valour.” In one week forty-nine fair chances were missed, and the batsmen thus favoured scored against them, after they had been let off, 1,439 runs. The greatest changes that have occurred in the game of cricket have been in connection with the character of the bowling and of the wickets. The regular introduction of round-arm bc-wling in the third decade brought about, first of all, a remodelling of the shape of the bat, previously a curved, flat-faced club, into very much the form it now bears, details of subsequent evolution being ingenious devices of the makers and an alteration of balance to suit the development -of play behind the wicket on the off-side. The improvement of the wickets reached the existing acute stage within the last decade, jmd it has unquestionably had a maikecl effect upon the play. ..The taint of betting does not affect cricket, and there are no appearances of its ever doing so. Like racing, however, cricket lias necessarily become a gate-money affair-—-necessarily, because of the heavy expenses entailed by the upkeep, of grounds in populous neighbourhoods and by the travelling of teams. With spectators lining the ground several .rows deep the area of play became circuinscribed, and the making of long running hits became impossible. Hence the “boundary’’ hit, for which the batsman receives an allowance in runs without running for them.