"TIMELESS TESTS"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23692, 27 December 1938, Page 10

"TIMELESS TESTS"

. • DISFAVOUR IN LONDON RECOMMENDATION TO AUSTRALIA (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Nov. 24. The Advisory County Cricket Committee dealt a blow at the timeless test at their meeting at Lord's yesterday, when they adopted a proposal for the standardisation of the hours of play for tests between England and Australia in both countries. The proposal that all test matches should be limited to 30 hours' play—six days of five hours each™n Australia, and five days of six hours each in England—will, if accepted by the committee of the M.C.C., be recommended to the Australian Board of Control. That test matches in this country should be extended to five days is no real matter for surprise, seeing how few have been finished in four under the modern method of preparation of wickets. What really matters is that the limitless match, both here and in Australia, would cease to exist.

The happenings at the Oval last August were not to the liking of the general public, and it surely is not right that it should be possible in a game of cricket for each side to rely upon its batting rather than its bowling.

Though tests in Australia have lasted longer than six days—the last two in A. P. F. Chapman's tour of 1928-29 did so—the period suggested seems ample. The committee rejected by a majority vote the proposal of Worcestershire that every first-class county should be represented on the Board of Control. The counties represented will still be the first ten in the championship table at the end of the preceding summer. Last season Worcestershire finished eleventh.

Last season 10 per cent, of the net receipts of matches between the counties and the Australians was pooled and divided among the 17 counties. This scheme will not be in force this summer.

Middlesex proposed, and it was carried, that a registration scheme of county cricketers be prepared on the lines suggested by the Findlay Commission. The M.C.C. will be asked to appoint a sub-committee to deal with this. £42.000 PROFIT ON AUSTRALIAN TOUR COUNTIES' LARGE SHARE The net profit on the Australian tour in England last summer amounted approximately to £42,000, it was announced at the Board of Control meeting, also at Lord's. Although not a record, the profit compares favourably with that of previous Australian visits to this country, and but for the washed-out test at Manchester, where not a ball could be bowled, all past figures would have been beaten easily. The distribution of profits was:— £3350 to the M.C.C. and each county on whose ground test matches were played. £I6OO to each county on whose ground + est matches were not played. £220 to each minor county and university. It is estimated that over a period of four years the counties who stage test matches on their grounds have received an average of £I4OO per annum towards the cost of maintenance and improvements. For next summer, when the West Indies will be in England, three test matches of three days each have been arranged. The hours of play will be 11.30 to 6.30 on the first two days and 11 to 6.30 on the last day. The price of admission will be 2s. The board decided that the new Selection Sub-committee to be appointed next spring shall be continued on the experimental basis of four members, including two county captains, as last year. It was announced that Sir Pelham Warner did not wish to seek nomination on the committee, and a hearty vote of thanks for his services and those of the other selectors was passed. There will be no test trial matches in 1939 or 1940. A resolution which received approval by the board was that in future, as often as can be arranged, the 12th man in test matches should be a player on the stall of the club on whose ground the match is played, and the M.C.C. will definitely carry this out at Lord's. The reason is to lessen any handicap to the county tcsms Owing to the death of Lord Hawke and the retirement of Mr A. G. Webbe, who asked to be relieved at the end of the year, two new trustees will be appointed at the spring meeting. Those present at the meeting were:— Earl Baldwin (chairman), A. Sellars and J. H. Nash (Yorks), Sir Pelham Warner and R. W. V. Robins (Middlesex), Rev. H. R. N. Ellison (Derby), Lieutenant-commander V. J. Robinson and Major H. A. Henson (Glos.), W. N. Riley and W. L. Knowles (Sussex), A. J. Spelling (Essex), H. D. G. Leveson Gower and A. F. Davey (Surrey), T. A. Higson and R. Howard (Lancashire), H. A. Brown (Notts), Colonel Sir Stanley Jackson, Colonel C. Haseltine, S. Christopherson. R. H. Twining, and W. Lindsay Everard (M.C.C).