NOTES BY LONG SLIP.

Otago Witness, Volume 23, Issue 2684, 23 August 1905, Page 58

NOTES BY LONG SLIP.

A promising young batsman of the Carisbrook Club in the person of W. Soarrow has been appointed to a position in lnvercargill, which centre should benefit by his services on the cricket field. At the conclusion of last cricket season it was feared that Dunedin had seen the la-t of Harry Graham, the ex-international cricketer, but I rejoice- to know that the 'Mirtte Dasher," as the Melbourne pubJio fondly christened him, is io be with us for another terra. ( ihe Albion Olub- in ifs wisdom deckled to engage Graliam as ccach and groundsman for the season. The salary i«, I understand, to be £3 per week. Graham will be expec-ted to look after ihe ground— with a scythe, presumably,—prepare the wicket, and coach. It is possible also, on certain days in the week, that Graham will ccaeh the Otago High School boys. The ex-international has been "wintering" at Milton, where he has been engaged in pursuing the wily rabbit to its burrow. About the first week in October Graham is expected in town to take up his duties on the North Ground. Cricketers will be pleased to hear that George Skitch is meeting with success wuh the bat at Home. Playing for Second Poloe against Kenmuir, he contributed 16 in good style. The Evening Times goes on to say G. Skitch joined Kennedy, and the J former, a New Zcalander, by the way, who made his first appearance for Poloc to-day, made a capital debut, scoring 16 before Dunn found his weak spot. He is a powerful hitter, and should prove a decided acquisition to his new club. The next week he was promoted to the First Eleven, and played aojainst Kilburne. The Poloc bad 60 runs to make in en hour, and G. Skitch proved equal to the task, contributing 34- not out in 40 minutes, while his partner kept going at the other end, and the required runs were obtained, with time to spare. The Australian team of 1878-" included Spofforth, Boyle, Allan, Kendall, and Gar- | rctt. Beside this combination, how dreadfully weak the present representative Australian bowlers look ! It was the formidable '78 team that put M.C.C. out for 33 and 19 runs, Spofforth taking six wickets for 4 in the first innings, and four for 16 in the second. During 1 JVI. A. Noble's absence in England with the Australian "eleven 1 * the veteran A. C. Bannerman will captain the Paddington team in the coining -season. The cabled iutimation that D. R. A. Gehrs, a member of the Australian Eleven, intends to remain m the Old Country and settle in Glasgow came as a surprise to his father, Polioo-corporal Gehrs, who had received no notification from his son that he ' contemplated such a step. The young cricketer, who is a mechanical and electrical engineer, holds the diploma of the South Australian School of Mines and Industries, and he hag probably had an offer whereby he might gam a wider experience and become more proficient in his calling. Mr Richard Mitchell, cricket coach for Eton from 1866-1897, oaptain of the Oxford University Cricket Club 1863-1865, who died on April 19 last, aged 62 years, left estate of the gross value of £48,456, with net personality £4-1,197. Among the great I cricketers who were formerly his pupils I were B. J. T. Bosanquct, C. I. Thornton. Lord Harris, the Lyttelton brothers, and the Hon. Iyo Bligh (Lord Darnley)^ An astonishing first appearance in this season's first-class cricket was made by R. E. Foster for Worcestershire against Kent, at Worcester, on Monday, July 31. He mads 248 not out. The number of very high-class batsmen in English cricket is evidenced by the success of England against Australia in the 1905 series of test matches with R. E. Foster unable to take part in tha matches. An odd combination of circumstances occurred in a match in England recently. When batting for tho visitors H. E. Bull, the club captain, split his hand badly and had to retire. Tho doctor who was sent for hurried to tho ground on bis bicycle, which skidded on the tram lines, with the result that ho wns seriously injured. Both men were then taken to tho hospital, where they received the necessary attention. Timo lias brought about *>oitk> remarkable changes in connection with, Australian cricket. Not so many years ago the phrase, "playing for keeps, was invented by a genius — whoso namo eeoms to have been lost — to express what ovcrybody thought about Australian batting. One remembers Noble's iwo maddening innings of 60 not out and 89, whioh together lasted for eight hours and a-half, in tha test match at Manchester in 1899; the terribly slow scoring by the Australians against English touring teams ; Aleo Bannerman's stonewalling ; one remembers that in England spectators sometimes used to leave the ground when the Australians were batting. But Trumper changed all that, and a,t the present time

' the Australian batting is often brilliant rather than safe. Yet it seems strange- ( c ays Cricket) to find F. A. Iredale, one of the Australians of the slow-scoring days, writing with cold contempt about the. unwillingness of Englishmen to take risks. He says in the Sportsman: "What could have been finer than the way our men played tho game as wo only recognise it in Australia? To-day the fact that we were losing did not stop our rate of scoi-ing- — no playing for averages, every ball that could bo hit was hit, and I pretty hard too, at times. . . . It is no uso you saying you cannot hit Armstrong'"* bowling. It can be hit, and no one batter than the batsmen know it. It can be hit in the air, but when the batsman ; i won't do this, then ho takes refuge in the i vain endeavour to get behind the ball every j time." | At the same time, ]nhafc Iredale says la quite true. The bowling of Armsircng or any other bowler can bo hit if bat-men knowhow to do it. But tho mischief i 3 that; presant-day batsmen have not been accustomed to dealing with balk which are wide of the wicket to leg, and it takes time to learn how to make new strokes. George ■ Parr would doubtless have knocked off Arm- ' strong in a few ov-ora, but ho would also i without doubt have made a muddle of the j "off theory" until he became accustomed to it. But although, the present Australian team has perhaps naturally been blamed for playing for a draw, or apparently playing for it, quite early in each of the three test matches, their side of the question is worthy j of considerat'on. At Nottingham they had I very little- chance of winning after Maclaren and Hayward had mastered their bowling in the spcond innings ; at Lord's they may not unreasonably have thought, that, bar rain, the wicket would be much better on the second day ; and at Leeds their chances of winning were small when England went in a second time. Fortune might give them the upper hand in the last two matches, and hence the best thins; was to try to avoid defeat until their chance cam-e. But it is not only in batting that Aus- [ tralian methods have changed so vastly. | Ths methods of bowling have been entirely remodelled. It is impossible to imagine W. L. Murdoch allowing Boyle, or Spofforth, or Turner, to bowl for about five hours with ih-e epec : a] object of keeping down the runs, under any conceivable j:im«listanc<vs, much lee;* when" the opposing side had only a lead of 106 on the first innings.; it is impossible to imasine these bowlers doing such a thing, for their temperaments would have compelled them to go for wickets. It was sometimes necessary for them — as well as Trumbls, Ferris, Palmer, and other great bowlers — to endeavour to keep down, the runs, but they were never "pa&siv© resisters." L. O. S. Poide-vin on C. B. Fry: "In some nates on the first day's p^ay in the third test match tbe great cricket critic sousht to explain away the deadly dulness of his own play by asserting- that the Australians adopted defensive tactics in the field, tli-e inference being- that t?iey bowled more with the obieet of stopping the p.coring than of petting batsmen out. an the principle that 'if we can't get them out we will prevent them scoring, and make a draw of it.' But what is the use of a draw to tbe Australians? And for a batsman to say that the number of men on the lesr-side curtailed his scoring ability to such' an extent that he could get no more than, approximately, 20 runs pel" hour, is surely a profound admission of his own want of versatility and a remarkable lack of scoring strokes for a great player. One of the Australians who had' read O. B. Fry's comments, facetiously asked him over lunch whether ' when he was batting would he like the six men who orenevall^ field ot> the-lesc-side in the pavilion.' Fancy Victor Trumper being tied \\n to impotence in that way ! One cannot imagine 14- men on the leg-side or in any other position in the field Hmitinsr him to 20 runs an hour. No! Great credit is due to the Australians for their excellent work in the field on the first day." .