CRICKET TOURS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19953, 10 November 1934, Page 16

CRICKET TOURS

THE AUSTRALIAN ATTITUDE

Recently one of New Zealand's cricket legislators had some hard things to say of the attitude of Australian cricket to that of the Dominion (writes Dr E. P. Barbour, in the Sydney Morning Herald), and it is impossible to deny that there is some basis for ms complaint. One would like to see the Board of Control renewing negotiations with New Zealand, partly because from a cricket standpoint Australia has done little to help New Zealand, and partly because some of the younger Australian players might derive much benefit from the experience of a New Zealand tour. There is little doubt that the tour arranged for the end of the last season fell through primarily because the allowances to players were so inadequate that several of the best-known were forced to decline the trip. When the team threatened to become third rate the New Zealand authorities not unreasonably declined to take the real risk that the tour might be a financial failure. There seem to be two essentials for the success of such a tour, and they seem to be mutually dependent. The first is that the team should include several internationals or ex-internationals, known to draw the crowds. This can only be achieved if the second essential is fulfilled, namely, that allowances are framed on such a scale that the player, without seeking to make monetary profit from the tour, may at least be able to undertake it without fear of loss. This second condition was not fulfilled in the arrangements last year. The particular advantage of such a tour from the Australian point of view is that New Zealand wickets are not unlike those of England, and may serve to develop a bowler, left-hand or otherwise, whose spin is more or less nullified by the glazed pitches of Australia. Left-handers such as Wyeth, of Brisbane, and Walsh, of Glebe, would almost certainly be a great success in New Zealand, as they would in England.