CRICKET.

Wairarapa Age, 14 March 1929, Page 2

CRICKET.

NOTES ON PLAY AND PLAYERS.

(BY

“SPECTATOR.’’)

After a spell of broken weather during the week cricketers were favoured with brilliant sunshine for the resumption of the competition fixtures last Saturday. The local senior fixture—United v. High School—was commenced on the School ground, on an absolutely perfect wicket. Favoured with the luck of the toss, School batted first, and keeping possession of the crease for nearly the whole afternoon, ran up the highly creditable score of 351. With two good wickets lost, and only x 46 runs on the board, Uniteds prospects of topping this total do not look too- favourable, but an such a good wicket and with the short boundaries it is marvellous how quickly a score can mount up, and despite their bad start, United’s previous performances this season show them to have at least a fighting chance cf pulling the game round. With Barr absent and F. Hoar and Blamires unavoidably late ini arriving, United opened with Renner and A.. Hoar, but opposed to stubborn batting by Groves and Jenkins neither was successful. Both batsmen were content mainly to adopt defensive tactics, and for the first hour the rate of scoring was painfully slow.

Torrance, who relieved Renner, received the first wicket beating Jenkins with a good length ball, with the total at 58. Jenkins who scored 27, played soundly on the whole, but his innings was marred by a couple of uppish strokes which had the good fortune to fall.just clear oif the fieldsmen. With K. Uttley partnering Graves, the scoring maintained' its slow but steady progress. Uttley was slower even than usual, and after a good stay! at the wickets had only eight to his credit when he was bowled by F. Hoar. Nevertheless, with the help of a rather unusual number of extras, the partnership had added 50 runs. The appearance of Dr. Uttley at t'ho wickets had a tonic effect and did. much to atone for the previous -slow! and uninteresting batting. The School captain was in his best form, and getting on top of the tiring bowling right from the commencement, set the score moving in leaps and bounds. Frequent changes of bowling were tried without avail until with the total at 185, Grovels was out lbw. to (Smith. The retiring batsman, who had scored 76, played a quiet, unenterpris-' ing innings, chiefly valuable for its tiring effect on the bowlers and undoubtedly paving the way for for the following batsmen to score at the expense of a tired attack. Without scoring a run, Farnsworth! held his end up till the total ‘stood at 217, and wais then bowled by Smith. Faulknor had a short stay, and after scoring 9 was bowled by F. Hoar, the score then standing at 5 for 230. Dr. Uttley, meanwhile, was continuing to punish the bowling unmercifully, and with the score verging towards ihe third hundred was approaching his century, which he hoisted with a hot shot past point, to- the accompaniimeint of a hearty outburst of applause. After attaining the century —-bis second this season—Uttley threw caution to the winds, with the result that at 110 he was bowled in attempting a mighty hit off A. Hoar. Except for a couple of really hard chances, Uttley gave a 1 dashing display of the kind of cricket that iis delightful to watch, and it was undoubtedly the most vigorously compiled century of the unusualfly large number that have been recorded this season. Six wickets were now down for 280 runs. W. Logan, who had partnered’ the School skipper during the latter part of his innings, after a rather slow and uncertain start, began to get the mcas ure of the bowling. Though not a lefthander like his father, he showed all the latter’s well known partiality for anything on the leg-side, and a big proportion of his 43 flins were from welltimed shots in that direction. At this juncture the appearance of Blamires was hailed with dielight by the tired Unite! attack, and the late-comer was immediately handed the ball. With his fifth ball he clean-bowled Logan: with a trimmer, and ii> his third over secured Falloon’s dismiss at lbw. eight wickets then being: down for 330. The r emaining two wiekets quickly fell to Smith, the in-rings closing for 35L T. Falloon, who scored 21 played a rather remarkable -innings, scoring practically all his runs by well-timed pulls to leg. Evidently the possessor of an eagle eye he had no hesitation, in pulling either fast or slow bowling off nis midxUe pin to leg and the frequency with which he connected was little (short of marvellous. Short or length bowling appeared all the same io him, and he utterly confounded -one bowler by smiting one bqll pitched right dn the block to the suqare-leg boundary. Of course, aetdes such as these usually have the same endiaiig, and with, a -slightly faster ball Blamires closed the account lbw. . A rather remarkable feature of the was that, with the exception i wo victims, every man was clean-bowled and no catches were taken. This is no reflection on the helding, which on the whole, was fairly good, but the few chances given were by ao means easy, and no presoniations were being handed out by the batsmen Ao less than eight bowlers had a turn with the ball, but Smith (4 for 51) and Blamires (2 for 11) were the only ones aoie to regard their averages with any degree of satisfaction. In the maili, the bowlers had a wearyinotack against good defensive batsmaw in? tho of I>r Uttley and Falloon, absolutely refused to take a chance. In the half-hour they were at the crease. United lost Dunderdale (3) and A. Hoar (14) cheaply. The former was beaten all the way by a good ball Lff 11 / a ™ ?w orth. and Hour pulled an off ball from Jenkins into his wicket just where he appeared to be well estabdiMMied. Blamires, with. 23 on, played soundly for runs, and with Patrick (5) will continue the innings next Saturday. Carterton, with 3 wickets down for 135 in reply to Old Boys first innings score of 144, seem assured of a,t least'a Hrst innings win but their chances for a straight-out win, which they require to keep them in the running for ijhe ‘ championship, are not so hopeful.! rhcir best chance seems to lie in quick- ‘ ly hitting up a sufficiently big first in-

Ttin-gg score to enable tl\em to register an innings win. The scaring so far in this game has been moderate, the best being Law (34) and Montgomery (24) for Old - Boys; and Tracy (43) and Morton (42 net out) for Carterton. Should Carterton succeed ir gaining a straight-out win, and United lose their game against High School—both of which apear likely contingencies—- ! Carterton will still be throe points be- ■ bind the leaders, and will a ; straight-out win against United in the final game to finish up the competition ■on level terms. At present Carte rton’s J chances of again lifting the championi ship, while decidedly “iffy,” are not ? hopeless, and it is quite passible that ; the senior championship will provide ? a much closer and more ia-teresting ’ finish than appeared likely at the con- > elusion of thie second round. i r EASTER MATCH i WAIRARAI’A v WELLINGTON I At a meeting of the management - committee of the Wellington Cricket r Association, held last week, it de- ? eided to send a Wellington team to Masterton to play the Wairarapa repreI'semtatives at Easter. The match is to , be a two-day fixture, and will be play.ed on Easter Saturday and Monday.