CRICKET.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 October 1928, Page 20

CRICKET.

A remarkable game of cricket, so unlike the cricket played anywhere else that a . passer-by would wonder what game it was, has lately taken place in London between two sides of boys. It is a game which takes place every year. The boys seem to find it very good fun, rushing about as if it were blindman’s buff, but bowling and fielding and'making runs in excellent fashion. As a matter of fact, the game is blindboys' cricket, for the two sides are chosen from the East London School for Blind Children and the Hoyal Normal College for the Blind. Some of the cricketers, are quite blind; others are partly so. It ought to be the most pathetic sight to anyone who, watching the boys, know of their affliction, but they play the game bo keenly, with such high spirits and such uncanny perception of where the ball is, that after a time the sadness is forgotten—they forget t themselves. When the new batsman comes in he stands waiting, as one might say, with his ears open. * The bowler has paced the length of the wicket to get the idea in his mind of how far he has to send the ball. He touches the stumps at the bowler’s end with his left hand before delivering the ball with his right, so as to get the proper direction. The ball is made of heavy basketwork, with jingling bells inside it. As it bumps along the pitch the batsman listens for it, and smites at it when it comes near. If ha hits it, everyone can hear the smack, and then the whois•' field, batsman and bowler as well, listens hard. The fieldsmen listen so as to stop the ball when it trundles near them; sometimes they may catch it, but that is just luck. The batsman listens because, if the ball stops jingling, that must be because someone has fielded it. If it goes merrily jingling to the outfield, he runs. The East London boys in the last match ran up a score of 46. Everybody seems to work tremendously hard, and sometimes the fielders run into one another. This seldom happens to the batsmen, who are taught the rule of the road, always to keep to the left. But such fun and cleverness are evident to all who watch them at play that one is filled with admiration at their boyish good humour and lightheartedness. A GAME TO PLAY. When you are playing with a lot of friends or schoolfellows, you’ll enjoy playing the snake and the humming birds. Half the players make the snake, the other half are the humming birds, so first of all divide the players into two equal parties. One party forms a long line, holding hands, the other half just run about singly. Now it is the task of the snake to catch the humming birds, so the snake must run about and try to encircle a bird. As each player is caught, he or she joins on to the snake, until all the humming birds are caught. Then the game is reversed, the first humming birds taking the place of the snake, and so