General Gossip.

NZ Truth, Issue 229, 13 November 1909, Page 3

General Gossip.

Fielding, everybody knows, goes a long way towards success m a game of cricket.

A run scored is a run gained. A catch held might toe a winning factor. It might not be a bad scheme if, m week-day practice, local cricketers were •to adopt the methods of baseball. Say, for a quarter of an hour each practice day, under the direction of a practice captain, let the field be placed as m a niatch game, and the ball he batted «ut m every direction, infield and outfield. The "catch" of the season at Home has undoubtedly been A. P. Day, who was : horn m 1885. Last year he played ia fifteen matches m Kent, finishing up with the average of 33.45. This season he has shaped uncommonly like an All England.,player (says a "Daily Mail" critic), and, being quite a young man, one has hopes that he will figure m the Triangular Test matches of the future. Kent, too, provided another surprise packet of the season m W. Carr, who played for England, and, had he been properly nursed m tbe Fifth Test match, would surely have proved very successful. He did not play regularly first-class cricket until August, yet he managed, m the short time at his disposal, to get 95 wickets. ■' In a school match across^ the Tasman Sea, ithe winning team scored' 212 runs m 85 minutes. That's a trifle' faster than we're accustomed to see on the BashReserve on suburban grounds. George Hirst (says an English writer) •at- last* has to surrender his tenancy oi. the "best all-rounder" m England ; but. '.he will do so ungrudgingly, for his mantle t?tfls on the shoulders of Wilfred Rhodes, who has helped Klirst many a. time' to win the championship for Yorkshire. Two thousand runs and well oyer yohe hundred wickets is' Rhodes's bag for' the year, so one has to recant and dis-, ,■■ card the idea that Rhodes can no longer' bowl. It ' 'is more than probable, top, that he will fulfil his threat and make a. century m a Test match before he has, . finished. At the beginning of the English cricketseason, one felt that it was going t 0 be; : emphatically Hobb's's year ; but a nasty.:accident put hini ""'"hots de combat," and he had to resign pride of place. It doefe not much matter, for Hobbs has plenty of tinle m Which to jiss'ert his superiority. Hay ward's' figures are really wonderful wflen one remembers that he has been crippled nearly the whole summer. Haves, too, will look back with pleasure to 1909. Trumper grumbles at having (according, to the ruanner m which he works out the expenses of the Australian team) only a dividend of £202 at tbe end of the tour, and asks : Do you wonder at the old players who have had such different experiences previously being full up of. the new order of things. No doubt, itis galling to the old brigade to have to, disgorge some of the takings of the. trip, instead of grabbing the lot, as m" former trips ; but they were not compelled to go, and, probably, will not beamongst. th© selected eleven of the next trip, so that whether they growl or not . matters little. Unburdening himseH to a newspaper.scribe on his arrival m Australia, Trum-.-'j per, amongst other things, said :— "Prior, to every Test match the Australians.received a letter from a clergyman prophesying what would he the result of the • game, and, m every instance, he proved -correct. '_ . Noble had played the last •first-class match m his career. . . , Tn the first Test match, (Noble's temperature was over 100. . . , Woolley, the Kentish pro., is 6ft. high, .' good bat, fine - -field, useful bowler. ... Spooner is the best amateur. cricketer, and -probably future English skipper. Archie McLaren, of great cricketingfame, and as good a sample of the English bounder as one will' find anywhere, has, so it is said, joined a Manchester firm of motor engineers. Mac. has al". ready played many parts m life, but, seemingly, never makes a howling success of any of them. "Touchline" vents his spleen on the irroprassiblje, raucous-ivoiced East team barracker, who expressed his feelings m a way that jajs on tlie nerves of the. "Free Lance"- man, whose sympathies lie m quite another direction. "What is. sauce for the goose, etc," and "Touchline" would possibly raise the reputation of the team from the squattocracy endof the town, were he to give the chat to a leather-lunged northern partisan to abstain from belching forth those offensive epithets which have been so much m evidence on the bank during the past few Saturdays. And "Scout" doesn',t sug-. .gest that Charley Richardson should .take . on thfe job, which ought to be right in:to the hands of friend "Touchline, who, doubtless, will endorse the doctrine of "practising what you preach." . They say that "Doc" Edwards fairly lost control of himself when the Easterners made the winning hit against South, and threatened to paint Wellington village a luminous red that same night. A contrast m facial expressions were those of the "Doc" and Thomson, of earthparting fame. The double "blow-out - ' failure to pilch East's territory and„ de- - feat of the Southerners has sent the hammer manipulator into seclusion until the next Mayoral sprint event comes up; for decision. Apropos of the personal expenses of the members of the Australian team? ' over and above the general expenses, such as travelling by steamer and rail, board and lodging, etc., which Vie/ Trumper sets down as £190 for the trip, a' contemporary tells us that "one old cridketer who went to England several times made a boast that his total personal expenses for one tour amounted to only £17 10s. He kept a record of every! penny on one sheet of paper. His dis» bursements included £8 10s for a dress suit." Apparently, C. G. Macartney has fish to fry m other Dominion cities beside Dunedin, for we are told that, being ambitious to succeed m business, he has secured certain English agencies, which he intends to push m New Zealand. Perhaps the little fellow, after spying out the land, will come to the same conclusion as many other people, that Wellington, from its central position, is the best place m the Dominion to utilise as ' a distributing centre. Prof. Richards, of Otago University, who has played cricket m the Old Country, is likely to add to the batting strength of Carisbrook Club shortly. Year by year the gap between county and club oricket is widened (says tho ''Morning Post").- In spite- of all that is said m pavilions" and „ written m the. press about the dilatory methods of first-, class player?, they get worse rather than better, though, as a class, they are sensitive mortals,' who make a point ot hearing and reading criticisms passed upon them." The Sydney professional, C. Wordsworth, who has been re-engaged by the Otago Cricket Association as coach and ground bowler, states that the rheumatism which troubled his bowling arm last season has entirely disappeared. In the event of a recurrence of the old complaint, the Association has the right ot terminating the engagement at a week's notice. Saturday turned put to b« a fine day, much to the deligbt of the flannelled fools, as friend Kipling will have them , to be. The spectators were rewarded with witnessing some interesting cricket. A very high tribute has been paid t 0 the captaincy of M. A. Noble during ths recent tour pf the Australian loam, and yet, m 1905, though Joe Darling had been out of first-class cricket for some time, and Noble had captained Australia m Australia and the 1900 team m New Zealand, the members of tbe team, mostly N.S.W. players, made Darling their choice as skipper. J. N. Crawford, tlie well-known Surrey and English cricketer, who has accepted

a position on the teaching staff of St. Peter's College, South Australia, should be a great acquisition to cricket circles m the "City -of Churches." Urawlord is a first-class, all-round player, who has done some good work for Surrey, his batting average m 1909 being 20.45, and a bowling average, of 23.30.