AUSTRALIAN CRICKETERS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXIII, Issue 9347, 28 February 1881, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN CRICKETERS

The Australian Cricketers have come and gone. They ■" came, saw, and conquered " in every place in New Zealand but one— Wanganui. Their defeat on that occasion has never been quite clearly explained. They attributed it to the bad ground, but their advance agent had pronounced that same ground one of the best they had played on. probably the true explanation is of a somewhat compound nature. They played one man short — only ten against twenty-two, very heavy odds ; they had iaen knocked about considerably in a r 'very small steamer, and so could not have been in their best form ; and, lastly, it is only fair to Wanganui to ■ recollect that that place possesses some excellent cricketers, who can generally beat Wellington with ease, and a detachmeut of whom made the only res- ,.' pectable stand effected when a Wellington twenty-two played against the AllEngland Eleven in 1877. We may, therefore, candidlyrecognisethatWanganui can furnish good cricketers as well as lunatics, and, in accounting for the solitary defeat of the Australians in Hew Zealand, may allow a fair share of causation to the oreditable play of the Wanganui men. Nelson, too, had the honor of heading the Australian score by 11 in the first innings, the game being left unfinished for want of time. The only match, however, of real interest, was that with the Canterbury Fifteen, as that team alone had proved able to beat the first Australian Eleven. It is no secret that the main object of the late visit to New Zealand of the Eleven just departed was to "wipe out" that defeat, and assuredly they yrere eminently successful in achieving this end, the Canterbury defeat, in one inning3 with 100 runs to spare, being absolutely crushing. In all other cases the Australians' victory over the local twenty-twos was a foregone conclusion —not always rightly, as the event turned out — and it is probable that the viators were seldom seen in their best " form," because there were not opponents strong enough to call forth their fullest powers. The constant knocking Sbout in steamers too, and the absence of all rest, must necessarily have told against their play, and this must always be the case with visits from travelling cricket teams. However, the Australians have shown us some capital cricket, and enabled us to witness in gome degree exhibitions of that exceptional skill which vanquished several of the best elevens in England, and met on very nearly equal terms a picked Eleven of All-England on English soil, and this is something after all.— Even-