SOUTH CANTERBURY CRICKET

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20667, 4 March 1937, Page 9

SOUTH CANTERBURY CRICKET

To the Editor of “The Timaru Herald” Sir,—Cricket in South Canterbury this season seems to have dropped into a state of somnolency, a state for which the Association cannot be held blameless. The senior competition has been closed as from February 20, and the majority of the teams have had only eleven Saturday afternoons cricket for a whole season’s competition. When other Associations are playing their second and sometimes their third games of the season, the South Canterbury Association decides to start their competition. Grounds not being ready has been their excuse for years past. If a little diplomacy was used, and a little more keenness was shown, both by the Association and by the clubs, there is no reason why a start could not be made a month earlier than is done now, and then on top of this late start, a halt is called with the competition, and nearly six weeks of the season still to go. Is it any wonder that cricketers are drifting away to other sports? The Association has admirable help from “The Herald,” with excellent cricket articles and reports of games, but they do not seem able to take advantage of this help and rouse local cricket out of its state of lethargy. A game was played at Ashburton last Saturday, to serve as a trial to pick the representative team for the trophy match at Greymouth this month, and some new blood was included in the team. What do we find happened then. Kane, whose capabilities are well known, bowls all through the innings, and Reynolds and Stack did

not get a trial. It was Stack’s first appearance in the eleven, more or less as a trial, and he was not- given that trial. I would not accuse Mason of deliberately trying to keep a country player out of the touring team, but why bowl a representative certainty at one end all the innings, and leave others untried. Surely the selectors were very much lacking in their duties as selectors if they did not instruct Mason to try out the new players thoroughly. Stack, I should think, has a bowling average this season, second only to Allcott’s. It Is happenings like these that makes both players and supporters disgusted, and everything starts to drift, with the result that the game gets more and more into the doldrums. —I am, etc., CRICKETER.