THEIR FIRST TEST

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 150, 27 June 1931, Page 5

THEIR FIRST TEST

NEW ZEALAND ELEVEN CRICKETERS AT LORDS MUCH INTEREST EVIDENT. [By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright! LONDON, June 25. The New Zealand cricketers are enjoying three days of much-needed rest prior to the Test at Lord’s. They were entertained by the International Horse Show authorities at Olympia last evening and to-day watched the lawn tennis championships at Wimbledon. They will indulge in net practice at Lord’s to-morrow. Several of the players are receiving treatment for muscle strains, but none are suffering from serious injuries. The Test eleven will not be chosen until Saturday morning, when the weather will probably be the deciding factor in the tilling of the last, two places. Air Donnelly, chairman of the New Zealand Council, has arrived and will join the team. He hopes to discuss with the AI.C.C. the prospects of future tours by English teams. Considerable interest is being taken in the Test. Tickets are selling rapidly and given fine weather a large attendance is assured. MESSAGE FROM LONDON “ALL WELL EXCEPT WEATHER.” PROSPECTS FOR GOOD GATE. I Per Press Association. 1 CHRISTCHURCH, June 26. A cable message has been received by the secretary of the New Zealand Cricket Council from Mr Donnelly (chairman of the Council), who has just arrived in London, to the effect that all is weil w‘.th the team, except j the weather. The administration arrangements are satisfactory and a good gate is certain for the Test match, he says.

CHANCE FOR WOOLLEY. INDISPOSITION OF SUTCLIFFE. LONDON, June 25. Sutcliffe has not recovered from the strained leg and Woolley replaces him in the Test team. CRICKETERS IN LONDON TOURISTS ENTERTAINED. REPRESENTATIVE GATHERING. •‘The British Sportsman’s Club —with Lord Harris, SO last February, m the chair —was the first representative body to entertain the New Zealand cricket ers,” writes “Quex’’ in the London News Chronicle. 14 Tom Lowry wore a Quidnuncs tie. There Mere, as might be expected, references to his relationship by marriage with A. P. F. Chapman. Al. L. Page, who sat on Lord Harris’ left hand, was much tanned by the sea voyage. Young R. O. Talbot, one of the Canterbury representatives in the New Zealand team, looked as English as any Oxford or Cambridge undergraduate. 4 4 Lord Desborough, Earl Jcllicoe, Viscount Plumer, Sir Kynaston Studd, Lord Ebbisham and Earl Howe were other distinguished men at the top table. Lord Jcllicoe is remembered in New Zealand for his devotion to small yacht sailing.” “Lord Harris,” the writer continues, “made a truly delightful speech. He said all of us hoped that the New Zealanders would have luck in their matches, and then added with disarming pawkiness, ‘but not more luck than us.’ When he said ‘We trust they will prove foemen worthy of our steel,’ he stressed the ‘our.’ “It was sixtp years since he went first on a cricket tour of New Zealand. He remembered being at Napier. The accent then was on the ‘pier.’ Nowadays it is on the first Syllable of the m ord. “ ‘We were being driven across a creek w’hen the driver was tapped on the back of Airs “Afonkey” Hornby, who said that her husband had fallen in the water and he might catch cold. “ ‘When we got to the inn we found that there had been a Afaori gathering,

and the only food left fqr our hungry team was a tin of sardines. Everything else, to use an Etonian phrase, had been brosicrcd. There was also half a bottle of whisky. I advised that that should be put aside for the next day. Tn the night the whisky was also brosiered.’ ”