THE M.C.C. TOUR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 843, 11 December 1929, Page 8

THE M.C.C. TOUR

AT the civic welcome tendered to the M.C.C. team on its arrival in Wellington yesterday, Sir Francis Bell awoke the echoes of a memorable occasion when he mentioned that one of his most treasured trophies was the ball used in a match in which New Zealand heat an English team at cricket. That match was the celebrated Test between New Zealand and Captain G. E. Wynyard’s team of amateurs. Played at Wellington, the match resulted in a win for New Zealand by 56 runs, a clear-cut win—the one and only victory scored so far by the Dominion in matches against any official English eleven. That was 22 years ago, in the 1906-7 season. Since then another team, MeLaren’s, has come and gone, leaving a Test record marred only by a draw at Christchurch. Now another team, perhaps the strongest of all, is with us; and Sir Francis Bell is not alone in cherishing hopes that the exploit of 22 years ago will be repeated. The English cricketers are the ambassadors of a game that wakes a peculiar thrill in anyone of Anglo-Saxon fibre. Its development from the spacious days of rural encounters on Broad Halfpenny Down, the nursery of English cricket, to the present, when cricket is governed by complex organisations endowed with immense material resources, lias been the development, not only of a game, hut also of an influence on the character and outlook of the nation, and there is no clearer reflection of the bond that unites New Zealand to the Old Country than the interest felt here in cricket, not only when New Zealand teams are engaged, but also when Australia and England are engaged in competition for a prestige that seems almost of Imperial consequence. New Zealand cricket is not of the uniform strength of the game in either Australia or England, but its progress has been so marked that when the next New Zealand team visits England, in 1931, it will have the honour of meeting England in a Test, the first played between New Zealand and England on English soil. The tour on which Gilligan’s team is now embarking should be a very good index of New Zealand’s prospects on its next visit to England. The most conspicuous feature of the recent improvement in New Zealand cricket has been the rise in the hatting strength. Batsmen ljke Dempster and Blunt are good enough to take their places in any cricket company. Opposed to them in Gilligan’s team are batsmen of similar calibre —men like Woolley, one of the finest cricketers of all time, and Duleepsinliji, the hearer of a famous tradition. The English team is so strong that it nav be expected to win most of its matches against provincial sides, but for the Tests New Zealand’s hopes will he high.