AFRICAN CRICKETERS

Taranaki Daily News, 16 August 1935, Page 9

AFRICAN CRICKETERS

RECORD OF PAST TEAMS GRADUALLY IMPROVING , A steadily improving test cricket record reached its climax this season when the South African touring team defeated England in the second test match at Lord’s by 157 runs. Prior to this test, England and South Africa had met infour series of tests in England. Three' matches were played on each of the tours m 1907 and 1912 and five each in 1924 and 1929. Of the sixteen matches England won nine, the rest being drawn. Tn each of the first two series the South Africans ran up against a demon, bowler—not fast men, but bowlers of length and guile. First there was Colin Blythe. In the three 1907 tests he took 26 wickets at an average of just over ten runs each. At Leeds he took fifteen wickets for 99 runs. Five years later the South Africans visited England again, and this time they met Sydney Barnes. He took 34 wickets in the three tests, and they cost him only 829 runs each. Still, that year the South African batting was exceptionally weak. Three times they were dismissed for under the hundred —58, 93 and 95. After the war it was England’s batting that proved too much for the tourists. In 1924 the Englishmen won three of the five tests played, and Hobbs, Sutcliffe, Woolley and Hendren scored centuries. At Lord’s England amassed the east total of 531 for the loss of only two wickets. Hobbs with 211 set the pace that day. In 1929 the "South Africans again found the English batsmen in good form. Two members of the present test team, Hammond and Wyatt, scored test centuries against them that year, and Tate, Sutcliffe, Leyland and Woolley also got their hundreds. Still, England won only two matches of that series, and now it looks as though the two countries are more evenly matched than they have been before. ♦ • ♦ ♦ Billiards for Women. Billiards is gaining in popularity in Britain as a game for women. New clubs are being formed, and there is a demand for skilled women to act as instructors.