Home-And-Home Matches And Plunket Shield Cricket

Taranaki Daily News, 26 November 1934, Page 11

Home-And-Home Matches And Plunket Shield Cricket

OTAGO’S OBJECTION HOLDS UP A MUCH-DESIRED CHANGE

TpOR many years the Otago Cricket ■ Association held a position, in relation to the other major cricket associations in New Zealand, analogous to that of a poor relation of a comfort-ably-situated family. Because of its geographical situation and, also, because it? climate could not reasonably be relied upon not to interfere unduly with the gate-receipts from fairly expensive 'matches, it did not have as many New Zealand representative matches with visiting teams from overseas as the other major associations had. The attendances of the public at interprovincial matches in Dunedin were not generally as large as those in the other main centres. Of late years, however, the Otago Cricket Association has done something to improve the quality of its cricket; this was a considerable factor in Otago’s winning of the Plunket Shield in the 1932-33 season —an event which restored Otago s prestige in the game in New Zealand arid stimulated public interest in cricket within that province. It must be all the more disappointing to the other major associations, therefore, that the Otago Association promptly voted against the proposal that in seasons when no team from overseas is in the Dominion the Plunket Shield matches should be of three days each and that each province should play each of the others twice. # 45- w As the Otago Association does not hold the Plunket Shield now, it might be able to resist an accusation of being influenced by the “pot-hunting’ spirit in deciding that because there would be difficulty in getting its strongest team away it should not agree to the proposal for home-and-home matches. It could, though, be convicted of being slow of understanding, and of being inconsistent with its former desire to obtain more good-class, cricket, for its own players to play in and its own public to watch. As an association it has not been intelligent enough to realise that when a system of home-and-home matches is in vogue no association in that system has to do any more travelling than another’s, and that on the average it should be no more difficult for any one association to get its strongest team away than it is for another, It apparently has failed to realise, too, that in each season in which such a system is in operation it would have half of its matches on its own ground, whereas under the present system it has to be content with-having half of'its matches in two seasons on its,own ground. So in a series of.home-arid-home matches - the proportion of games in which l it should be at full strength is larger. » * * In a system of home-and-home matches, the cost of travelling would bear equally upon all four major associations,' as each . of them would have to send its team travelling the full distance between the centres farthest apart; all that would vary Would be the point at which each team entered the circuit. For example, Wellington would not gain any reduction of expense,, in a round of home-and-home games, from its central position, for its team would have to go to Auckland and also to Dunedin in the one season, and would actually do no less travelling than either Auckland’s team or Otago’s, provided all the “away” matches played by the Auckland team, and similarly by the Otago team, in the season were played on one trip. • ... . # *• « ’ ■ Much’of the objection that home-and-home matches would take players away from their work too much would disappear if the- games were reduced to three days each, and if most of them fitted into the Christmas and New Year holidays. At first glance an increase in the number of playing days for each representative team, from 12 d^ys—that is, three matches of four days each—to the 18 playing-days involved in six matches of three days each indicates an increase of 50 per cent, in the leave of absence required for the players. Actually, I believe, the in- . crease will be myich less than that if all the matches that possibly can be fitted into the Christmas and New Year holi-

days are played in that period. The travelling-time required is an appreciable addition to the demand upon the time of players, whether it be under the present system or under the proposed one, but I am informed that one of the delegates to the New Zealand Cricket Council calculated that if me fullest possible use of the Christmas and New Year period were made a PJayei could represent his association throughout a series of home-and-home games and yet require little, if any, more than two weeks’ leave of absence in addition to the Christmas and New Year holi days. A . a

There probably would be some players who would be unable to. give any more time to representative cricket than they devote to it now. Then there would be opportunities fora number of players to force thems elves into the front rank. So long as the honour of representing ones province is not cheapened too much by it, an m crease in the numbers of playeis representing a province in one season maydo good. In the selection of batsmen, for example, there is a natural inclination to give a little more attention to the man who makes acenturv now and again in club cricket and a little less to the man who, although making fifties or sixties more often, does not make a century, but who yet may be more suitable for representative cricket. Some players of the latter type probably would get more opportunities in the proposed home-and-matches, and show that they really are better fitted for the first-class game than are those on whom more attention has been focused.

«- * * A verv interesting position would be created if the three other major assodecided that in seasons m which there is no team from overseas in the Dominion they would not play for the Plunket Shield, but would play home-and-home matches, of fays each with each other, and with Otago it the test-mentioned chose tc> come m then. For it is not encumbent on thv associations to play for the ( Pluniret Shield* that trophy is. Simply open w competition” by them. It has, however, been more profitable for the associations to play for the shield than to have interprovincial matches without a tronhv at stake, because of the undue importance that the public attaches to matches for shields and pots, _ comparison with those which are played without these things. However, if the associations took the bold course and neglected competitions for shields the public would soon readjust its attitude toward the game. In Canter bury the sport-loving public has been led a little wav along the more desirable path by its experience of Ranfurly Shield Rugby matches, in which the play m genera was not so attractive as it wasingames played by Canterbury after it had lost the Ranfurly Shield.

The Auckland, Wellington, and .Canterbury Associations may still desire to play home-and-home matches with each other and remain in the Plunket Shield competition too, but the difficulty caused by Otago’s refusal to fall in with the plan suggested by delegates to the special conference held in Christchurch recently, is that it would not be so easy to fit a considerable proportion of the extra three-day matches into the Christmas and New Year holidays. The matches would also be more expensive, because the “gates would be much smaller on the average.

* * * It would be interesting to know if the Otago Association would support a scheme, for playing home-and-home matches, of three days each, if these were not for the Plunket Shield. With that thought, however, one enters the realm of speculation about the effect of “pot-hunting” on the organisation of provincial teams; proceeding further into it might be unfair to Otago, and certainly would take up' too much time. The main point, at the moment, is that the Otago Association; by opposing the proposal for home-and-home games, has done something toward holding • the other associations near to Otago’s own former position in cricket, instead of helping them, and itself, to obtain more good cricket. ALC