EDITORIAL TEST CRICKET

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 168, 20 July 1935, Page 4

EDITORIAL TEST CRICKET

QESPITE the fact that England came within an aee o£ victory in the third Test against the South African cricket team, and and that showing will do a great deal to lift the gloom of pessimism which had settled on the cricketing world of the Mother Country, the indications are fairly plain that something very vigorous will have to be done if England is to win the rubber. Five Tests are to be played. South Africa has won one, and the other two have been drawn. Approaching the third Test, England sensed an atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty. An unsettling influence had been created from four main sources—operation of the new lbw law, a comparative shortage of top-notch spin bowlers, a slow batting rate, and retention of too many veterans in the side. Press pessimism added to the general feeling of unrest. Rather than be helpful the Press has-been gloomy, and the fact tended to undermine confidence. Xouth is clamouring at the door of cricket at Home, but the selectors arc not yet certain of whether that youth is reliable enough to continue with. Evidence of that was revealed in the fact that four of the younger men in the second Test were omitted from the third. England faced a parting of the ways when her batting and bowling might was opposed to Australia in 1934. She was beaten in every department, and with no new Hammonds, Sutcliffes or Larwoods on the horizon, she moved on from her conflicts with Australia to lose the rubber to West Indies a little later. To-day she faces the prospect of losing another rubber to South Africa.