SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15994, 7 December 1923, Page 6

SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

CRICKET. KOPUARA'HI V. TURUA

A team of 15 cricketers came from Turua last Saturday and played a friendly match with 15 of the ICopuarahi Cricket Club at Kopuarahi, and a very enjoyable game resulted in a victory for ICopuarahi by an innings and 43 runs. Afternoon tea was served and the visitors thoroughly enjoyed themselves. At the conclusion of the game, the president of the ICopuarahi iCricket Club, in a neat speech, tendered the visitois a hearty welcome and hoped to see them back again as it tended to make* friendship amongst the community, the outcome of the match being that Turua intended making a cricket pitch and possessing & promising lot of young players, should be right in the foreground by another season. Appended are the scores: TURUA.—Ist. Innings. Bennett J., c McMillan, b Gill - - 0 Stewart J., run out ' ® Miller J., b Gill . • • • • • Sutton A., e o’Garroll, b Gill • - 8 Dr. Bathgate, b T. Field .. .. 0 Madgwick, Jnr. b, T. Field .. 0 Bell F., c O’Carroll, bT. Field .. 0 Billings R., st, bT. Field .. . * 0 Walker, not out ... • • ° Madgwick, Senr., e Field, b Gill .. 0 Goodsell, b Gill j? McConnell, b Gill • • • • • • 0 Horrox, b Gijl .. ••' • • • • ® Davis, W., b T. Field Henderson, bT. Field .. • • 3 Extras 3 Total 32 Second Innings. Stewart, b Gill • • Sutton, b Gill t • • __ Miller, Jnr., c Peekham, b Gill . • ‘ Walker, b Gill Bennett, b Gill • ••" •• •*,. ** Bell, b Gill I Davis, bI. Beddie •• • • •• Goodsell, c Gill, b I. Beddie . • Madgwick, Jnr, bT. O’Carroll .. 9 Horrox, b I. Beddie " Billings-, b T. Field .. * • •• -J Henderson, c Gill, b I. Beddie .. Dr. Bathgate, st I. Beddie .. 3 McConnell, bT. O’Carroll .. . * 0 Madgwick, Senr, not out .. Extras 6

Total KO'PU ARAHI —1 st. Innings. Green R., st F. Bell Beddie I, ibw„ bF. Bell .. • * ° Marceau J, c Walker, b Bell .. 1 Green, Russell, c Stewart, b Bell 17 White, G. H, e Walker, b Stewart 0 McMillan 0, st., bF. Bell .. .• 13 Green H, c Bennett, b .Stewart .. 5 Gill T, e Sutton, b Billings. *• 25 O’Carroll T, c Bennett, b Billings 0 Peekham, c Horrox, b Billings .. 0 Field I, cW. Davis, b Stewart 17 Lawrence C, c Walker, b Sutton. 4 Hegb A, b Billings 3 Green N, not out 0 Front B, c Madgwick, b Sutton 0 Extras 5 Total • 112

WHEN WA'S 'CRICKET “BORN”?

OBHHN OF THE GAME

How, when and where was cricket Born?

Quite a large number of ball games have been regarded as the ancestors of cricket. Amongst them are stoolball, club ball, stob-ball, creag, cat-and-dog, hand-in-and-hand-out, and many others wi]th equally looking titles. A writer who conceals his identity in the initials H.P.T., examines them all hi detail in an interesting book entitled “Cricket’s Cradle,” but forms the conclusion that, except in a very vague and general wajq none of them can be regarded as being a forerunner of our national game as played to-day. Cricket, he says, in its simplest form, is the natural game that any two boys will play with a ball and a piece of wood, and must have been “born” hundreds of thousands of times. It became “cricket” when the name was first given to it. As to the origin of this name, like the origin of the game itself, authorities differ. Some derive it from the French criquet, a cricket form the quick, jumping movements of these insects,, resembling those of players at the game. The author rejects this derivation, however, in favour of the Anglo-Saxon eric, a crooked staff.

Add the diminutive “el” and we get cricet,' a little crooked staff. This is, save for the spelling, our modern word “cricket,’’ for. of course, the second “c” like the first, is given the hard “k” sound as in cat.

In support of this contention it may be pointed out that in' the wellknown picture by Hayman—reproduced in many books on cricket —depicting. the game as played in Vaux-

hall Gardens in 1743, the ‘“batsman” is using, in place of the orthodox bat, a short crooked stall, or cudgel, not unlike the typical Irish shillelagh. Cricket in this form is at least as old as the 12th. century. One “Joseph of Exeter,” writing in the reign of Richard I, describes “the game of cricks,” as played in his time, more than 700 years ago.

“There are,” he tells us, ‘ two sticks 'stood upright with a third across, the top, and one player throws a ball at these sticks, which a second defends with a club, while a third stops the ball with his two hands when it passes the sticks.

Modern cricket, however, is generally regarded as having had its oiigin at the old Bat and Ball Inn, situated in the village of Hambledon, in Hampshire. Here, in 1700, the first cricket club was formed, and a regular code of rules governing the game was drawn up.

Before this cricket—or a sort—was played, but in very haphazard fashion. A bat of any shape and size was permissible, with the result that some players elected to use one of the same width as the stump. To those who imagine that the playing of cricket by women is a modern fad, it may come as a surprise to read that matches between ladies were frequent ,in the old days. An ancestress of the present Lord Derby —the wife of the twelfth earl —was an enthusiastic cricketer and captained a team of noblewomen who played in exhibition matches with considerable success in various parts of the country. Matches of this kind betweenteams of women were very popular

in the early years of the eighteenth century, and some of them seem to have caused considerable excitement.

Thus we read that in 1747 the women of Charlton met those of Westdean in the Artillery Ground, London before “the greatest number of spectators ever seen at any public diversion.” So great, in fact, was the crowd that “the company broke in so that it was impossible for the game to be played out, and some of the players being very much frightened and others hurt, the match was not finished until the following week.”

EYESIGHT AT CRICKET,

THE TWO-EYED STANCE,

(By Dr. R. MacDonald.)

Is it judicious in cricket to face the bowler full with two eyes? The “two-eyed stance” has been abused by many batsmen because they not only used a “two-eyed stance,” but ,an incorrect two-feet stance, and also their subsequent foot and shoulder work are at fault. It is not generally known that the “tw.o-eypd stance” is m accordance with the scientific principles of modern gunnery as concerns range-find-ing. The eyes, while giving expression to stereoscopic vision is concerned with three dimensions, rangefinding with two dimensions, the well-known mathematical principal of triangulation being applied when two eyes are used. Now, iii what position is the rangefinder placed in order to simplify and interpret to the most accurate degree the distance of the objective. A distinguished naval officer writes to me as follows “The principle of the range-finder used in gunnery depends on it being absolute at right angles to the line of sight ” This therefore, is in exact accord-

ance with the “two-eyed stance/

The batsmen of the “two-eyed stance,” Hobbs, Fry, Ranjitsonhji, Macartney, Bardsley, the late Victor Trumper, and Shrewsbury, have, by facing the bowler, all placed the base-line of their eyes as nearly at absolute right-angles to the line of sight as possible; but note also that fchev all incline the face of the bat

owards their legs; this is due to

that slight twist of the body, chiefly at the hips, which enables them to keep the feet and legs in a correct position, and yet simultaneously to present the base line between the two eyes at right-angles to the line of sight. In both stereoscopic vision and range-finding the greater the distance between the observing points (that is, the eyes) the more effective is the instrument. An iutresting analogy in connection with this is that marked width between the eyes has been a characteristic of many of our greatest batsmen, Dr. W. Cf Grace being a classic

example. The fascinating ease which marks the batting of Hobbs, George Gunn, and J. W. Hearne is due to their finished footwork, brought about by perfect sighting of the hall; in these three placers one sees not only the exposition of the “two-eyed stance,” but also the perfect maintenance of their eves .in the horizontal plane.

There are conclusive reasons, optical and mathematical, for getting the base line of the eyes as nearly as possible at right-angles to the line of sight, and also for maintaining this base line in the horizontal plane, thereby giving a sense of the true vertical, so that any deviation of the straight hall from the vertical plane through which it is travelling due to swerve or break, may 7 he more accurately observed. All this can be brought about only by the adoption of the “two-eyed stance”; but it must be accompanied bv correct footwork to satisfy the exacting demands of the critics and the art of batting.