R. de R. Worker Comes Back to Home Town

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 565, 18 January 1929, Page 7

R. de R. Worker Comes Back to Home Town

Has Been “Capped” for 5 Provinces FINE OPENING BAT To have played for every Piunket Shield province in New Zealand is the record of R. de R. A'ork.r. veteran member of the Wellington cricket team, who is renewing an acquaintance with Auckland cricket, which dates away back before the war when he won his “cap” in the Grammar first eleven, and represented his home province along with such brilliant players as N. C. Snedden, C. C. Dacre and S. G. Smith. Worker gained his first representative blazer for Auckland away back in the 1914-15 season. He was then still in his teens. Since that time he has played for Canterbury, Otago, Wellington and Hawke’s Bay; toured Australia with W. R. Patrick’s side in 1925-26; and altogether can claim as wide an acquaintance with New Zealand cricket as it is possible for a player to have. He has never scored a century for New Zealand, but as an opening batsman, with his solid, correct left-hand strokes, he has frequently his side going on the way to a oig innings total. An old cricketer’s oictum that “an opening batsman’s job is not to scoring centuries, but to break the back of the bowling for the scoring men who come after him” can at least be soundly applied to Worker. lie is a worker for his side. A few years ago at Dunedin, Worker v.*ent within an ace of the great ambition of every Piunket Shi?:d cricketer —a century in each innings of a match. His old comrade, “Ces” Dacre, once did it against a Victorian team at Auckland, but nobody has managed it yet in Piunket Shield matches. Worker is the nearest —104 and 96, an average of exactly 100 for the two innings. It was in the famous high-scoring match at Dunedin between Otago and Wellington, in which Worker was one of four Otago batsmen who scored a century. Worker’s highest score 's 171 for Otago, and his best for New Zealand is 87 against Victoria. A brisk, dapper little figure in the field, he has proved an admirable coach for the different secondary schools’ teams with which he has been associated as master and cricket coach. His return to big cricket after a fairly long absence will be welcomed by his many friends ir Auckland, although he will no doubt appreciate the point that there arc two distinct schools of thought as to the dcI sirability of him reproducing his old 1 form at Eden Park this week-end!.