CRICKET IN OTAGO

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20669, 6 March 1937, Page 16 (Supplement)

CRICKET IN OTAGO

DIAMOND JUBILEE Great Games of Eventful Past The diamond jubilee of the Otago Cricket Association was celebrated in conjunction with the playing of the Otago-Canterbury Plunket Shield match.

Otago’s cricket history dates almost from the time of the foundation of the province. The Dunedin Cricket Club was founded in the first year of the settlement. On New Year’s Day. 1849, a match was played between married and single members of the club, on the site now known as the Octagon. The bats were made from the wood of native trees and a shoemaker contrived to manufacture a ball The single men won with scores of 34 and 15 for one wicket to 24 and 20. Otago cricket made its first great advance through the enterprise of Mr Shadrach Jones, who conceived the idea of arranging a tournament embracing Otago, Canterbury and Southland. With almost breath-taking enterprise he took the exceedingly bold step for those times of arranging at a cost of about £3OOO for a visit of J. Parr’s English team then touring Australia. The tournament began in January, 1864, Otago beating Southland and Canterbury, but losing ,to the Englishmen, who also played combined Canterbury-Otago. It is indicative of some of the changes which have come over the game that it is recorded that the betting was seven to one against Otago before the match with Canterbury. In 1865 Otago beat Canterbury at Christchurch, and in 1876 the Otago Cricket Association was formed at a meeting in Wain’s Hotel. There seems to have been some uncertainty about what the name of the association should be, and it was variously styled the Otago Cricket Association, the Otago Cricketing Association and the Otago Cricketers’ Association till the formal adoption of the Otago Cricket Association.

Matches used to be played on the Dunedin Oval, and when the change to Carisbrook was made there were strong protests, chiefly because gate takings immediately fell away, through spec-

tators securing free views of the games from a nearby hillside, Known to this day as the “Caledonian Grandstand.” New Zealand’s Greatest Pair of Bowlers From 1890 to 1900 Otago cricket was strong, chiefly through the great bowling combination of A. Downes and Arthur Fisher. The pair did much to create the most successful period of the game in Dunedin. Both had exceptionally long careers, and they became probably the most famous pair of bowlers ever to play together in New Zealand.

One of the most memorable of all games that have been played at Carisbrook was that in which the Australian eleven met fifteen of Otago in November, 1897. The visitors were a great side, including such famous players as J. Darling, F. Iredale, George Giffen, Clem Hill, Albert Trott, and Hugh Trumble, but they were able to win by only 17 runs. The game provided a triumph for Fisher and Downes The former secured the remarkable figures of six for 39 and five for 39, and Downes took three for 42 and four for 38. Fisher so impressed the Australians, who were in need of a left-arm bowler, that they invited him to go to Australia for a trial on Australian wickets, with a view to the possibility of his inclusion in the Australian side to meet England. The effectiveness of Downes and Fisher was shown again in the same month, when they routed Canterbury on a soft wicket for 27 and 49. Downes in this game took seven for 12 and five for 28, and Fisher’s figures were three for 14 and two for 17. In the same season Fisher took nine for 50 against a Queensland side which defeated Otago by eight wickets, and he followed up this performance with seven for 11 against Canterbury. J. Baker (a fine batsman), Downes and Fisher gained places in a New Zealand side which toured Australia, and Baker headed the batting averages. Plum Warner’s Double Century One of the most notable sides to visit Otago was Lord Hawke’s English team, which played at Carisbrook in 1903. The Englishmen won by an innings and 230 runs, their score being 473, of which P. F. Warner, who was missed before he reached double figures, contributed 211. C. G. Wilson, later of Wellington, was

one of the outstanding members of the Otago side in a few subsequent seasons among his performances being 137 and 58 against Auckland, which Otago defeated by an ninings in 1906. R. Torrance, in recent years a fine umpire, embarked upon his career as a leftarm bowler at this stage.

During the 1913 season the fiftieth anniversary of matches between Otago and Canterbury was celebrated with home-and-home matches between representative teams and veterans’ teams from the two provinces. J. Baker had no'Ai become a veteran, but he showed that he had retained his former skill by scoring 101 (not out) in one of the latter matches. In 1914 A. W. Alloo was included in the Otago side, and he scored 101 against a Wellington team, which included C. V. Grimmett, later to become one of the greatest slow bowlers of all time by his successes for Australia against England and South Africa.

In 1924 Carisbrook was the scene of perhaps the greatest game that has ever been played there. It was a match between Otago and Wellington, and it will occupy a permanent place in cricket records. The game last for five days, and during that time up fewer than 1905 runs were scored. Only once previously in the history of first-class cricket had this aggregate been exceeded. The number of centuries scored seven was also equal to the record, and Otago’s performance in scoring 495 in the fourth innings when set 641 to win had been beaten on only three previous occasions. Wellington’s'' scores were 560 and 465, and Otago made 385 in its first innings. For Wellington, W. A. Baker made 143, B. J. Kortlang 103, H. McGirr 117, J. S. Hiddleston 150, and D. C. Collins 110. For Otago, R. V. de R. Worker made 106 and J. McMullan 111. In addition, Worker made 94 and Shepherd 92 in Otago’s second innings. Before the season was over cricket enthusiasts saw another great score made on Carisbrook by a New South Wales side, which compiled 752 runs for the loss of eight wickets. C. G. Macartney, who led the visiting team, contributed a brilliant 120, and others who showed great form were Austin Punch, who made 176, A. F. Kippax, who scored 150, Warren Bardsley, and H. L. Hendry, W. A. Oldfield was the wicket-keeper of the side, and Arthur Mailey, now a noted writer and cartoonist, was its outstanding bowler, taking five for 64 and six for 41. Plunket Shield Won One of the best sides that Otago has fielSed was that which won the Plunket Shield for the province for the first time in the 1924-25 seeason. It was led by the Rev. O. E. Blamires, now in Wellington, and included R. de R. Worker, who later played for Hawke’s Bay and Wellington, and J. McMullan, one of the selectors of the New Zealand team to go to England. Worker and A. W. Alloo gained places in a New Zealand team which visited Australia in the following season. Otago did not win a match in that season, and when a Melbourne Cricket Club team visited Dunedin in the following season, Otago suffered an innings defeat. One of the members of the Melbourne team was H. Ebeling, later a member of Australian teams.

Otago secured an outstanding performer from Canterbury in R. C. Blunt, and in 1928-29 he made scores of 114 against Wellington and 221 against Canterbury. In the second innings of the latter match Otago made the great score of 602 for eight wickets.

A notable event of the 1931-32 season was Blun’t great score of 338 not out in Otago’s second innings against Canterbury at Christchurch. It was a record score for a New Zealander, and the performance was the more exciting because it was made possible only by the great stand of W. Hawksworth. the last man in, who stayed with Blunt while 184 runs were added for the last wicket. Though Otago made a second innings score of 589, it lost the match by three wickets. This, however, was Blunt’s last season with Otago. He left New Zealand to take up an appointment in England, leaving behind a great record. He had made nearly 20,000 runs in club and first-class cricket and had scored over 60 centuries, playing eight innings of 200 or over. For New Zealand he scored 6000 runs and took 180 wickets. The standard of Otago cricket had improved so much that even without Blunt’s services Otago was able to win the Plunket Shield for the second time in the 1932-33 season under the leadership of F. T. Badcock, who went to Dunedin as coach after giving fine service for several seasons in Wellington. The team In that season was: D. Smith (now in Wellington), A. R. Knight, J. A. Dunning, F. T. Badcock (captain), G. R. Dickinson, D. A. R. Moloney (now in Palmerston North), V. G. Cavanagh, W. A. Priest, W. Hawksworth, C. Elmes, R. W. Coupland, T. Chettleburgh, V. Leader.

Winter sports have become a craze in France. Everything is winter sports

or inspired by winter sports. Brooches, wraps, ties, ornaments, all take their inspiration from winter sports, and many people with little hope of reaching the snow fields are ’wearing costumes more appropriate for the Jura and Savoie than for Paris. An establishment opened originally only for training would-be skiers has now become a fashionable rendezvous, where people go to see well-known champions take leaps or execute thrilling slaloms down a hundred-yard slope covered with artificial snow. Week-end trains out of the Gate de Lyon and Quai d’Orsay station have often to be tripled. They take passengers south to sun or snow, or even to both, for it is now possible to leave the Riviera and within an hour or so be on the snow fields of the mountains of the hinterland. Methods for coping with the crowds taking up the new sport are modern and ingenious. People going to the snow fields in parties can obtain very low rates on the railways. Many of the hotels in the same region—in one "ase a group of 104 hotels—issue exchange meal tickets, enabling a person staying at one hotel to take a meal at another hotel without increased cost. This allows for wider travel and longer ski runs. Hotels have ap arrangement with the railway companies for a combined rail and accommodation ticket over the week-end, so that a person going off on a Friday night by one of the many “snow trains” knows exactly what his week-end will cost him. Much money is being invested tn winter sports resorts, and new teleferic cable car lines are being built. The Paris-Lyons-Marseilles railway boasts that it has more than 150 winter sports resorts on its system, and the ParisOrleans and Midi comes next with over a hundred, followed by the East railway, which claims to run skiers to the snow in less time than any other railway,.as it serves the fine snow fields of Alsace and Lorraine.

Megeve, near Chamonix, and Superbagneres, in the Pyrenees, lead the winter sports in popularity. An impetus to winter sports in France has been given by the fact that the International Ski Championships of 1937 are to be held at Chamonix.