ENGLISH CRICKET TEAM

Southland Times, Issue 20641, 13 November 1928, Page 10

ENGLISH CRICKET TEAM

THE OMMISSION OF WOOLLEY. SELECTORS NOT' SATISFIED. MAMMOTH SCORING PROBABLE. London, September 15. Sporting Life is still convinced a mistake has been made in not including Frank Woolley, of Kent, in the English team for Australia. That is our grumble (says the writer of the leading article of Setember 15.) should have been inconsistent if we had not made it, but having registered it we are content to accept the team as it is, and to express our opinion, always with the reservation due to the non-inclusion of Woolley, that it is the best that could possibly have been selected. To say that it satisfies us would be an exaggeration. We do not hesitate to say it does not satisfy the selectors. We are certain they would have been less anxious as to the outcome of the tour if they had had at their command, bowling of the kind that was provided by Sidney Barnes and F. R. Foster. There is no such pair today, but what happened in the game between the champion county and the rest encourages the view that our attack is not so innocuous as is generally supposed. Not one of the Strongest.

We are not able to subscribe to the view that has found expression in some quarters that the side that has gone out under the captaincy of A. P. F. Chapman is one of the best that has ever left these shores. Our knowledge of the personnel of some of the teams that have preceded it, and the record of their achievements against stronger opposition than that which the present combination is likely to meet, compel us to join issue with those who have allowed their enthusiasm to capture their judgment.

Our opinion is that A. P. F. Chapman has a very strong batting side and an average amount of good bowling, but that he has not at his command those super-excellent bowlers who are needed on the easy Australian wickets to get rid of players who have monumental patience, and who have made defensive cricket a fine art. There will probably be some mammoth scoring in the tests, and present portents are that the results will depend largely upon the bowling and fielding. While we have got a Barnes, a Foster, or a Rhodes in the present team we have the record-mak-ing Freeman, the earnest and energetic Tate, the whole-hearted Larwood, and the effective Geary. Great Team Spirit. We have something more. We have the team spirit. There is not an atom of doubt about that. The side will play as a team, and not as eleven separate units. And it is to team work that we look in no small degree for the success of the English players during the next few months. Even as recently as last Monday the urgent slogan was: “Woolley must go!” A. P. F. Chapman may be the youngest captain who has ever taken out an English eleven to Australia, comments the Evening Standard, but of all our test captains I should imagine he is the least likely to be perturbed or rendered nervous by the importance of the occasion. At Victoria this morning he was, I though, the calmest and most collected man on the platform. Calmness and presence of mind are his strong suits, and he has the knack of getting on and of getting his own way with everybody, without any fuss or friction. I predict a very successful captaincy for him. Captain a Natural Player. Although best-known as a cricketer, Chapman is a natural ball-games player. At Cambridge he just missed a “Rugger” Blue, while he nearly played in the “Varsity” Soccer match as a goalkeeper. He does not play golf very seriously, but can hit the ball a prodigious distance. As a tennis player he might easily have reached the highest class. I remember on one occasion at Cambridge he and Jack Macßryan beating the “Varsity” top pair. Mr. Walter Ashley writes in the Daily Express: Chapman has quite naturally assumed the deep sense of responsibility inherent in successful leadership without losing his light-heartedness. In other words Chapman has become a fine captain without ceasing to be either a supremely confident bat, a brilliant and enthusiastic field, or a charming companion. Not that his apparent irresponsibility was ever—at least since I have known him—more than superficial. Another characteristic Chapman has preserved from his Cambridge days is a hatred of fuss. If he had his way he would have taken himself and his men on the roof of the Oval pavilion, after their extraordinary “good-bye” performance last Monday, and flown direct thence to the decks of the Otranto.