CRICKET.

Otago Witness, Issue 2358, 4 May 1899, Page 40

CRICKET.

NOTES BY SLIP. The Australian cricket team have elected Darling as captain, with Trumble *as vicecaptain. Major Wardill, Darling, and Trumble are a Finance Committee, and Darling, Trumble and Gregory the Selection Committee.

The sum of £78 was paid in wageß to members of the New Zealand Cricket team.

The final match for the senior cricket.championship in Wellington has been abandoned, and the Midland and Wellington Clubs will be bracketed as winners.

At the meeting of the New Zealand Cricket Council last week, Mr F. C. Raphael, manager of the New Zealand team who visited Australia, read the report of the lour. It is claimed that, considering the disadvantages the team were subject to in the way of travelling, strange grounds, and the calibre of the players opposed to them,- the team acquitted themselves with great credit. The balance sheet showed a deficit of £249, but this had been met by the guarantees of the different associations being called in. Mr Raphael said the immediate result of the tour would probably be a visit of a Victorian team next season, while the manager of the Australian Eleven had notified his intention of including New Zealand in the forthcoming tour.

Discoursing about W. L. Murdoch and Qlement Hill, Mi W. J. Ford, the Middlesex amateur (one time headmaster of Nelson College in this colony) writes: — "It is a far cry from Murdoch to Clement Hill, who came of age in 1893, but if any shouldera are destined to receive Murdoch's mantle, Hill's are the probable recipients. He is instinctively a batsman, and I have noticed that he, like- Murdoch, has a way of Retting his teeth and opening his eyes as he prepares to receive the ball — the marks of tremendous earnestness and keenness. Making his mark by scoring as an emergency man 150 not out and 56 against Stoddart's first eleven, he has gone on from good to better, and from better to best, so that the only question is ' Where will he stop?' Perhaps a soft wicket may cheek him, but his resource and watchfulness are so great that he may surmount even tbe mud of Lord's. He has some rare strokes on the oX-side, stepping in front of the wicket and passing the ball across with great dexterity, but this shot, which he is apt to try too early in an innings, Fowietimes gets him into trouble. His back play is admirable, and if any fault is to be found with him it is that he is pot as dexterous (if the term can be applied to a left-hander) in placing the ball on the off-side as on the leg-side. He was a promising wicket-keeper, but wisely reserves his hands for batting.