CRICKET.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19980, 23 December 1926, Page 4

CRICKET.

By Sup. FIXTURES. December 25, 27, and 28.—Otago v. Wellington, at Wellington. January 1,3, and 4.—Otago v. Auckland, at Dunedin. SATURDAY’S MATCHES. Albion and Carisbrook each secured easy wins against Grange and Dunedin on Saturday. The weather was good and the bowlers generally had a “day out.’’ Grange were not faced with a difficult task in passing Albion’s first innings score of 172, and as only three wickets had fallen for 107 runs it seemed that they would exceed their north end rivals’ total by a comfortable margin. Moreover, two solid batsmen, Alloo and Elmes, had not got fairly started, and at least Alloo might have been expected to add a few runs. However, ho had added on five to his score when ho was unfortunate enough to be run out, and Elmes had scored but two more runs before Blamires scattered his stumps. The remainder of tho innings took the forpi of a procession, the last seven wickets yielding the small total of 33 runs. Only tho veteran Chadwick could make a stand against the deliveries of ,1. Shepherd and Blamires, and he carried his bat for 14. Tho newcomers to the Grange side, Stigli&h and Titchener, were not at home to the howling an(l were quickly dismissed, and Drown, who was expected to do well after his showings last year, succumbed to a straight ball from Shepherd immediately after be had broken his duck. The Grange “tail” is perhaps the poorest in the competition and tho club will have to look tor some new material if the team a few years hence is to maintain to some degree its record during several seasons past. . , . Shepherd aud Blamires each secured three wickets on the second day, Shep/heard’s “bag” costing him six runs and Blamires’s 21 runs. MTvor sent up three more overs for two runs, but his average for the innings was only one for 38. Once the Albion batsmen had become settled down it was obvious that nothing depended on their efforts, for the runs came so quickly that it became plain that Grange would have no hope of bringing off a second innings victory. Only throe of the batsmen failed to reach double figures, iuo outstanding display was that of Blair who played a forceful innings for 75 runs, olair is right back to form and if he maintains his present form should stand a good chance of selection for at least one of this season s Blanket Shield games. Barrens score ot 29 was a praiseworthy effort. . Dunedin made a poor stand against Carisbrook’s formidable total of 308, one mainly to Blunt’s excellent score of 175, and when play was resumed on Saturday two wickets were down for 46. strong batted solidly until his score reached 89, and then he was caupht behind the stumps off Dickinson’s bowling. Anderson contributed 18, and M'Gregor, who has been performing much better since he joined the south end team, reached the twenties before Rlunt secured his wicket, lorvance added a useful 17, but the remainder of the wickets quickly foil. Cherry soon settled down in the follow-on, but the wickets of Strang, M’Gregor, Kenny, and Cavanagh yielded few runs. Cherry carried on until he had compiled 44 wellearned runs, but the shot he made in attempting to hit a high ball from Douglas was a poor one and lost him his wicket. Anderson batted brightly for the second top score of 20, hitting one of the loftiest sixes seen on Carisbrook for some time. Torrance’s 15 runs also included a six. King made a better showing, and was going solidly at 15 when he was the victim of an Ibw decision. Symomls fell two short of the twenties, and the innings con-. eluded for 147. giving Carisbrook the first ■three-point win of the season. Dickinson gathered in most of the Dunedin wickets. His bowling was particularly fast, but he sent up a great deal of loose stuff. His average for 10 wickets was 11.7. Blunt took four for 16 in the first knock, and three for 47 in the second. THE OTAGO TEAM. The first Otago Plunket Shield eleven has been chosen, and on its showing in the match against Wellington, beginning on Saturday, will depend its chances of securing the coveted trophy. Otago’s win against Wellington last season filled supporters’ hearts with hopes for the futurfe, but on the of northern players this season every man in the local side will need to be at hia best, if it is to achieve all that it is hoped it will. Otago unforfortunately will be without the services of Galland, whose injury is still troubling him, but Lynch, the Southlander, may be secured to fill the vacancy, and Conradi, who will be travelling unofficially with the team, can be called on to fill any further vacancy that might occur. The following are the averages of the players originally chosen in club matches and the game against Southland: — BATTING.

Thp averages of Zimmerman and H. C. Alloo are not available, but the former has been performing solidly in North Otago. Alfoo has been a most prolific scorer for the Owaka team, and his average must be somewhere about the century. No fault can be found with the selection of Blamires a-s captain. He has repeatedly proved his worth in that capacity, and ( both as a batsman and a bowler is capable of matting up good performances. Blunt, of course, was an obvious selection and be will probably be the mainstay of the side. His batting this season has been worthy of such a great batsman as he is, and as „a bowler there is every chance that he will “come off.’ NOTES. The appointment of Mr Douglas Hay as manager of the New Zealand team to temr England must have caused general surprise. Mr Hay's name had not been mentioned among the many suggested for the position. However, he has undoubtedly been of some service to cricket, and those subscribing to the expenses of i’ - tour should have every confidence in him. Judging by the unmoor of shares taken up in New'.’Zealand Cricket (Ltd.), in Dunedin, local enthusiasts arc not very confident regarding the success of the English tour. Surely the sporting public of Dunedin are not doing justice to the reputation of the city. „ , -r, According to recent reports, R. de K. Worker has blossomed out as a bowler in Hawke’s Bay cricket. Under the title “The Quest for Bowlers (Sydney: The Cornstalk Publishing Company). C. T. B. Turner, who was "ihe Terror” in the Australian teams that visited England in 1888, 1890. and 1803, has written a book that is designed to be of assistance to Australia in her dilemma due to the lack of young bowlers ot the first rank. “Who.” it is asked in the book, “are the Australian cricketers of today with the ability and youth to justify their hopes for international honours in the future? Oldfield, Woodful], Ponsford. Taylor, Vic. Richardson, Alexander, and Kippax—all able batsmen, but not a single Y)Q^ylgi*J fi The plain fflet* it is aclclfitl, is that there is not a bowler in Australia to-day who can be bracketed with the collection of young batsmen mentioned as possibles of to-morrow. “The Terror” sets out to explain the methods by which a bowler can impart spin to a ball, his argument being that swerve bowling is ineffective, that fast bowling does not present difficulties to 'experienced players, and that it is the bowler who is able to spin the ball and maintain accuracy of pitch that is the dependable asset to his Sl< Without G. R. Gregory, East Christchurch would not be much of a batting side (remarks the Star). In the four matches they have played this season East have scored 855 runs off the bat. Of these, Gregory has made 283—nearly a third. la this a world’s record? (asks the

Christchurch Sun). In a City and Suburban Third Grade cricket match two Saturdays ago between Beckenham B and Marists there was a remarkable happening. In Beckenham’s first innings A. O’Connor gained the double hat-trick, and R. Poff attained to the heights of the hattrick. Beckenham made 20 runs. It must have been lucky to get them. The Yorkshire Comity Cricket Club has decided to open early next year a testimonial fund for Wilfrid Rhodes, in recognition of his great services to Yorkshire and world cricket. The committee made a donation to the fund of £250. It has also decided that benefits should be arranged for E. Oldroyd next year and for P. Holmes and H. Sutcliffe respectively in the two following years. N. C. Snedden, the well-known Auckland player, who was mentioned as a possible candidate as player-manager for tho English trip, is now announced to be unavailable for the tour. L. O'Connor, the Queensland batsman, performed a great feat by scoring a century in each innings in the match with New South Wales at Sydney last week. In the first innings O’Connor made 103 and in the second 143 not out. Referring to O’Connor, the Melbourne Sporting Globe says: “O'Connor, who is a Victorian by birth, has been a wonderful batsman for Queensland. In fact, he and Cecil Thompson have been the outstanding batsmen for that State for some years. Thompson has already made more than 1000 runs against New South Wales—he is the only Queenslander who has done so —and O’Connor is certain to do so very soon, for at the end of the Brisbane match he had made 925 runs.” The scores- made by O’Connor in tho second match with New South Vales bring his aggregate of runs against New South Wales up to 1171. A batsman remarked the other day that, although he had not made any big scores this season, he had at least reached double figures in each innings be had played (says the Christchurch Star). At first sight this may not appear to be much of a feat, but a study of the batting averages for the senior competition ot date this season shows that in the eight teams in the competition there are only nine batsmen who so far have not on one or more occasion been dismissed for less than 10. The passing years take toll of stamina and vitality, and men well on in the forties cannot expect to prance about like young fellows in the twenties (says “Burwood in the Dominoin). In New South Wales’s second innings against Queensland Macartney was missing. The excuse given was an injury to the neck. When veterans have to stand the strain of running about the field for a week on end old muscles are apt to rebel. It is a pathetic sight to see old gentlemen painfully hobbling about the field, footsore and weary. Macartney did not attempt it; be let some younger man go out and chase the leather for him. There is too much of this sort of thing going on in New Zealand cricket, and it is high time it was stopped. Old giants of cricket will not be reconciled to any of the new-fangled notions about altering the stumps or making the ball smaller, or any other of the suggestions which have been put forward to help the bowlers. M. A. Noble, former captain of Australia, when asked for an opinion about a reduction of the size of the ball, said he thought that implements of cricket should be left w-cll alone. Charlie Bannerman was horrified at the idea of a smaller ball. “In my day,” he said, “bowlers didn't complain about the ball being too big. What’s wrong with their hands? Bowlers of the old times didn’t have bigger hands than the men to-day, but they got their fingers round the ball all right, and made it spin like a humming top. If they start monkeying with the laws or material I’ll stop coming out to look at cricket.” We have heard of an incident that occurred recently that reflects little credit on the captain of one of the First Grade B cricket teams (states the Christchurch Sun). The match took place at Hagley Park, and on the first day the captain of one of the teams fielded, but did not bowl or bat. On the second day he was unable to turn out, and the team was one short, but had an emergency. As the afternoon went, the team that was short was within reach of a three-points win, after being led on the first innings. When the emergency went in to bat the opposing captain refused to allow him to go on to the field! Is there anything in the laws of cricket to justify this action, and is it cricket? It is pleasing to note that the strongest critics of the action were the senior members of the objecting captain’s club. THE AUCKLAND TEAM. Few loopholes for criticism are left in the selection of the team to represent Auckland in the Plunket Shield games at Christchurch and Dunedin at Christmas and New Year (says the New Zealand Herald). Strong in batting, but weak in bowling, it follows in the footsteps of all Auckland teams of recent years. Auckland is very weak in bowling this year, but 11 of the 12 players selected to make the trip are all capable of scoring centuries, although two of them will have to improve on their club form to do so. The players chosen to travel are Allcott, Cooper, Gerrard, Irving, Bowley, Matheson, Mills, Dacre, Player, Gillespie, Fratcr, and Rowntrec. Southern spectators, as well as the Aucklanders, who will stand round the newspaper board watching for scores to be put up, will watch with interest the displays of Bowley, the English coach, who will make his first appearance in Plunkct Shield cricket. It is safe to say that his stylish batting will not disappoint them, and his bowling in the south should prove more successful than it has done here, seeing that he will pi-obably be used as first change to Allcott and Player. Auckland wilt have one of the finest opening pairs in New Zealand in Mills and Bowley, and as a first wicket batsman there could be little improvement on Irving. Given good wickets, the Auckland team should be responsible for some heavy scoring. The batsmen will have to be at their best throughout, for it seems quite probable that they will have to pass big scores by their opponents. There are six bowlers in the team, providing very little variety, and with medium paced bowling as the mainstay. The selectors have very wisely omitted a fast bowler from the side. There arc two who might have been considered for selection —Simpson and Newdick —but neither is up to representative standard, and neither could be expected to prove successful against batsmen who have to face the express deliveries of Dickinson, and, to a lessor degree, Talbot and Henderson. There have been numerous cases where Auckland has won shield matches by .its slow bowling, ami Cooper and Bowley are fully capable of taking charge of this department in the forthcoming series. However, they could do with a little more assistance. Every one of the six bowlers is an all-rounder, who could gain a place -for his batting alone, and it might not have been risky to include promising young bowlers in the places occupied by Gillespie and Prater, or at least Frater. The selectors were hampered by the fact that neither Smith nor Garrard was available. The latter would certainly have been an acquisition, for he is in good batting form this season as wcli, while the i'onsonby lefthander has' been more successful with the ball this season than last. HEAVY BOWLING TASKS. A correspondent, writing from Adelaide to the Referee, asks if C. V., Grimmett and A. Mailey, on the recent tour in England, bowled as many balls as C. T. B. Turner and J. J. Ferris did in 1838 and 1890 on their tours, and asks if the work was as heavy on tho latest pair as it was on the two stars of old.. The repb- of course, is that the two slow bowlers this year sent, down nothing like the number of balls delivered by Turner and Ferris on their tours. Mailey and Grimmett had to bowl on better -wickets than those of 1888 and 1590, but Turner and Ferris bowled against better batsmen. In glancing over the figures provided below, it is well to keep in mind tha* —hen Turner and Ferris left Australia in 1888 to achieve their unexampled triumphs over English batsmen, they were aged 25 and 20 respectively, whereas the slow bowlers of this day are each well over 30 years. “A.M.” closer to 40. Turner. Ferris. Balls. Balls. 1388 10.350 8,890 1293 8,256 8.425 Mailer. Grimmett. 1920 5,453 5,434 \ comparison of the bowling of the two slow bowlers in England this year reveals the extraordinary fact that they sent down a similar number of overs—Grimmett 905.3, ami Mailey 905.4. The analyses of the bowling show Grimmett to have bean much more accurate than Mailey, and Mailey the

better wicket taker, though Grimmett’s wickets cost loss than those of his male. Tho figures are ; 0. M. R. W. Av. Grimmett ... 905.5 273 2055 120 17.12 Mailey ... 905.4 180 2637 141 18.70 A W. Alloo is a solid all-rounder, who has earned a place in the team. Dickinson will be playing for a place in the New Zealand team, and as he usually shows his best form in big matches he can be expected to take wickets. As a batsman he has shown good form this season, although his scores have not been large. H. C. Alloo, on recent performances, was a certainty for selection, and he can be expected to score a fair share of the runs. Torrance can keep the runs down as well as any bowler in the country. He is not losing in form, though he is gaining in years. Cherry, who headed the Otago batting averages last year, has put up two or three solid performances this season. Shepherd was obviously chosen on his reputation. He has done better as a bowler this season than as a batsman. Of course, he has had the misfortune to be run out on two or three occasions. It is to be hoped that this match will mark the beginning of his return to form. Green was the obvious choice as wicketkeeper. He has proved himself to be ah excellent custodian, and is fully entitled to his place. Knight was lucky to secure a place. His performances this season have been poor, and the selectors might have done bolter by giving Blair a chance. Duncan and M’Mnllan were not available. The team, as a whole, is strong in ail departments of the game. “Slip ” wishes its members the best of .luck. BOYS’ ASSOCIATION. The hon. secretary of the 0.8.C.A. informs me that boys under 16 years and others under 15 years of age on October 1 last, are to be chosen to play against boys of the same ages at Christchurch about the end of January. Boys under 16 will form the senior team and boys under 15 the junior. Messrs J. M'Phee and H. Vorrath have been appointed selectors by the executive of the Boys’ Association. As far as possible matches will be arranged for Saturdays during January, the off time for the secondary schools. A keen eye will be kept upon likely boys by the selectors, who have been deputed to watch the players. Only those who can wield the bat in the proper style and know the right to hit, and to hit ’ ard, will have a chance in the teams. They must be good batsmen, or they will not be able to do much against Christchurch. Mr M'Phee, the secretary, says he thinks that the chief difficulty will be to get good bowlers, who have a command of length, and have the judgment to lengthen or shorten the flight according to the success or failure the. batsman is achieving with his strokes. Youthful bowlers do not as a rule note the batsman’s weaknesses and bowl to it. Neither do they watch their field and place a man according to the strokes for which the batsman has a natural liking and a physical bias. There is more cleverness, cunning, observation, and judgment required in a bowler's head than in the head of any other man in the field. How many youths note that a batsman is swinging his bat too high and think of throwing a ball upon the crease line or block mark? Very few ever note the bad strokes of the batsman and bowl to his failings. Our boys will find that the Christchurch boys are wise to these points, and their bowlers and captains watch carefully what.-strokes the opponent batsman likes best, and soon place one or two men to spoil his chances of getting runs and to catch him out if he is fond of “skying” the balls. It is a pleasure to see how keenly observant the Christchurch captains and bowlers are in the matter of handling their fieldsmen. They can teach our boys a lot in that respect, one in which our teams always show great weakness. The Christchurch boys are also very hard hitters, and will score a lot of runs if our fielding is.weak or the men arc not manoeuvred properly. In manoeuvring to spoil a batsman s chance of getting runs or to catch him out, a fieldsman wants also to use his wits and do, on the quiet, a little manoeuvring himself if the captain or bowler has not noted the necessity of doing so. The Christchurch Boys' Association is always delighted to meet our boys and go to great trouble to make the visitors time one of great enjoyment. In sport there is a great bond of good fellowship between Christchurch and Dunedin, and the visit to Christchui’ch is quite worth working- for. It would be well for the boys to remember that and to be alert and efficient in all points of the game. Good team work has pulled off many, an unexpected win.

I. N.O H.S R. Aver. Blunt ... 3 — 175 299 99.66 Green ... 3 3 50* 40 40.00 A. W. Alloo ... 5 1 79* 124 31.00 B! am ires 113 8 14.12 CTierrv ... 5 — 51 128 25:60 Dickinson ... 4 1 27* 52 17.33 Galland ... 2 — 23 29 14 ..50 Shepherd ... ... 5 — 27 . 71 14.20 Torrance ... 6 1 25* 69 13.80 Knipht ... 4 — 16 29 7.25 BOWLING. Runs. Wkts. Aver. Shepherd ... 146 13 11.23 Torrance ... 152 11 12.00 Blunt 223 18 12.58 Galland 72 5 14.40 Blamires 113 8 14.12 Dickinson 281 SO 14.55 Knight 112 6 18.66 Alloo 316 13 24.39