CRICKET

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1289, 7 January 1915, Page 33

CRICKET

OTAGO NOTES.

(From Our Dunedin Correspondent.)

Has Canterbury the “Indian sign” on Otago? If it has Otago should give up playing Canterbury for the Plunket Shield. The record of Otago in these Plunket matches, both against Auckland and against Canterbury, is such as to give pause for inquiry if there is anything outside of the actual cricket that has such a marked influ-' ence on the Otago game, and brings in its train such disaster. The history of the province in these trophy matches is one series of disasters, each more appalling and more humiliating. If it is not the “Indian sign” which works such havoc, what is it? Or is it anything at all save Otago’s own incompetence and the other provinces’ superiority? It is difficult to know just how to approach the latest debacle of Otago in the match against Canterbury, or whether to approach it at all. The whole showing of the team is so disarming that it leaves almost nothing to be said, save to admit for the twelfth or thirteenth period that Otago cricket is far below the standard of Canterbury. This has been brought home severely in recent years, but with never such force probably as in the latest engagement. Dealing with things as they are, never was disappointment so keen. Yet disappointment over the result we could withstand, but not the poor exhibition of the Otago batsmen. The worst fears and the most pessimistic of us never predicted anything half so humiliating. 'lhe general feeling about town on Saturday was, however, not one of disappointment so much as of disgust. l\o one really stopped to reason the er out; all they knew or cared t was that Otago had again “let i.” ft is no pleasure to criticise Otago team in this fashion —the ibers are probably feeling their

matt abou dows the

position keenly enough, and there is no desire to “rub it in,” as it were. Perhaps the most charitable attitude to adopt is to say nothing and pray for better luck next time. While I feel that way, I also know it leads to the land of “don’t care” and “lots of time,” and that is fatal. Rather should we seek the reasons for failure and make strenuous efforts to remedy matters. At the outset let it be understood —not as an excuse for the wholesale failure of the team, but by way of extenuating circumstances — that Otago cricket is rarely or never at its best until, say, February or March —certainly not before Christmas. In this connection it has been suggested on more than one occasion that Otago should not play representative matches at Christmas and New Year, and that the time-honoured fixture with Canterbury, which for many seasons past has been played at Christmas, should be played in February. Having said this much it may be inferred that I wish to assume that if the match against Canterbury was played in February it would have a different result. That is not my intention, but to point out that in February Otago batsmen are in better form all round and would consequently stand a better chance. This season has not been as bad as last in the matter of postponements of matches owing to wet weather, only one Saturday afternoon having to be sacrificed, but the evenings on which practices have been possible have been few and far between. Still, dealing with things as they are and not what we might wish them to be, Otago has been honestly and squarely beaten in a match which carries ail the b-tterness of defeat with none of its honours. That is the distressing part of it. The team carried the full confidence of the cricket public. It was well selected and no recriminations can be poured on the heads of the gentlemen responsible in this respect. Every man had earned his place with more or less satisfaction, and, as a truth, where there was a doubt, as in the case of Bruges, that piayer made top score on the Otago side in the first innings and was the only one save Crawford to make runs aga.nst the Canterbury attack. There is a measure of irony about the facts, too, in that Bruges and Crawford are really not of Otago at all, which makes the actual Otago showing pit-able indeed.