THE ENGLISH-AUSTRALIAN TEST

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 290, 8 December 1932, Page 6

THE ENGLISH-AUSTRALIAN TEST

"THE first Test match between the English and the Australian cricket teams which has just been concluded in Sydney, has

revealed that the English team was definitely the superior. The superiority appears to have been both in the bowling and in the batting. The bowling has been damaging in a double senseit has damaged both the batsmen and the batting. It is not the first time in history that fast bowlers have found themselves bumping them down short and causing injury to the batsmen. This was a particular feature of the fast bowling when Warwick Armstrong’s team visited England, and its recurrence in the present Test would seem to indicate that the. habit is infectious. It is to be hoped that the idea of playing the man instead of the wicket will not become a general feature of the game. The English batting, on the other hand, appears to have been quite at home on Australian wickets. The claim has been made in England that the Englishman are not only playing the Australians, but arc opposed by the Australian climate as well. There may be something in the climate which requires getting used to, but it is not disturbing the batsmen very much. They are apparently able to compose their minds for a stay at the wickets and to pile up the runs in a methodical and steady way. This indicates that during the first Test, at any rate, Englishmen held the psychological ascendancy. It is the psychological factor which means so much in cricket. The team that gets on top mentally is hard to defeat. The job for the Australians now is to “stop the rot.”