REAL CRICKET

Southland Times, Issue 22490, 26 January 1935, Page 13

REAL CRICKET

THE WOMEN PLAY IT.

FAIR AND FASCINATING.

Women in real cricket. There s the rub. They have imbibed the spirit of the Trumpets and Macartneys of the bat; the spirit of the Sydney Gregorys and the William Bruces of the field; the spirit of Hobbs; the spirit of Oldfield and of Lilley. They play their game as though it were tne most pleasurable thing imaginable. And yet they show the desire to excel in the team-sense, and to win with a keenness no men’s team could surpass. That impression was created as one watched the women of England and New South Wales go through their two days out there in the centre of the fairest and most fascinating cricket field in the world, in the bright, cloudless sunshine, with barrackers in subdued and sympathetic mood along the Hill, and fair ones everywhere appreciative of the play, writes “Not Out in the Sydney Referee. Many cricketing friends of the writer put in hours on Friday prepared to be bored, and to relieve the monotony of it by waxing cynical at the expense of the play and the players. But they were promptly disarmed. The darts of cynicism were, changed to words of praise, of appreciation, of delight. They had discovered that women can play cricket, the same cricket as the men play, with natural felicity. They might have discovered it long ago had they troubled to watch some of the club games in Sydney, or some of those between the States. It might have been most excellent missionary work by the New. South Wales Cricket Association, had it cried off first grade fixtures last Saturday and extended an invitation to most of its players to find their way to the Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday and Saturday. What would they have learnt? They would have seen how spirited, enterprising cricket on the field grips the spectators. How attractive it is to see the fieldswomen moving into their places sharply with automatic precision, over after over; to see the batswomen bustling for runs between the wickets; to see the sparkle of the fieldswomen and their accuracy in picking up and in returning to the wicketkeeper; to see how the incoming batswoman meets the outgoer at the wicket gate, or on the field of play; to see the verve and sparkle infused into everything; the teaming and the incessant quest for runs or wickets. The batting, • especially that of Miss Hide, of England, and of Miss Pritchard, of New South Wales, would have done credit to many men in first-class cricket. Miss Snowball, as •Wicketkeeper, must have studied W. A. Oldfied. She has the Oldfield grace, poise and rhythm in her post behind the sticks. The effect is as pleasing as that of Miss Round s play on the lawn tennis court. That she enjoys it without semblance of fuss is shown by the smile that ever flits across her features.

The bowling of the women, in precision and flight, and in its methodical and natural delivery, would have done credit to the men of guile, and shown the mere slammers-down of the ball that there is more in bowling than in just wheeling them up. •The clean, crisp ground fielding, the anticipation, the fast accurate throwing, and the speed. over the ground were all greatly admired, and that, too, by spectators who know what is what in real cricket. Miss Hide has been termed the Miss Hobbs of England. She is all that m stance, ease, strokes, and speed, that is picturing John Berry Hobbs in his days of comparative youth, not in those when the years imposed their languid touches to his batting. The New South Wales women could have made the game a draw. But their, captain, Miss M. Peden, with a generous touch, and a desire to reward the spectators for their patronage, closed the second innings to allow the crowd to see how the girls of England can bat, and, perhaps to see how the girls of Australia can bowl and field. It was sporting and kindly. It was risky, but the actual result of the match mattered little. What did matter was that those who had not been there on Friday might see Miss Hide and other English women manipulating the bat with skill and grace and power men associate with the cricket of men, and the best of batsmen at that. A very happy move. To the English women it had a very happy culmination in the seven wickets win. And there was nothing unhappy in it to the New South Wales girls, who enjoyed the first with similar zest to that of their opponents. The sparkle, skill, enthusiasm, freshness shown in this two days’ game may mean that when the England v. Australia match is played on the’ same ground shortly, the public, by its support, may surprise the women of England. This venture may have been undertaken in much the same spirit as the H. H. Stephenson’s English team undertook theirs to Australia in 1861-2; that is, feeling that they were embarking upon an unknown enterprise the end of which they could not discern. But if that is so, the visit has been already a great success. The English women will return to their country, thankful that there is such a typically English game as cricket to bring the Old Land and the Antipodes together in fields of play, and to let light into their minds of the Empire beyond the seas and its peoples, about which so little is known in the Homeland, and that little often not too accurate. When one sees women play lawn tennis with the skill, the grace, the speed and the power and pleasure of Miss Helen Wills and Miss Dorothy Round; when we see them lifting their horses gallantly over the hurdles at the Royal Show; when we see their feats in the water and from the diving towers; when we see them in cricket —men must pause and wonder.