Sports and Pastimes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 31, 27 November 1896, Page 6

Sports and Pastimes.

Thi: Australian Eleven. — A great team the Australian Eleven of IMM> is not. but a good one it certainly is and its determination and its keeness have won for it a success which the batting averages of its members altogether fail to explain. It has no great batsman like Murdoch, as he was in the eighties, or Massie or Bannerman, and there is no Lyons or Bonner ; indeed Gregory, the best bat of the Eleven, is explicably low in the lists which include his English rivals of the year. It has no great bowler like Spofforth or CT. B. Turner ; nor even a great wicket-keeper like Blackham. But its batsman are singularly even in capacity ; its bowling is very varied, and great judgment is shown in the changing of it ; and that which always strikes the observer about its fielding is that every man is in exactly the right place to save runs Good captaincy and good fielding make we.ik boiling strong and strong batting weak, and it was good captaincy of this description which made the last team of Australians the most successful that has visited England since the incomparably superior one of 18S2 A useful invention. — A neat little device has been invented aid patented especially for the protection of cyclists from the annoyance of dust, flies, sun or wind. It consists of a very simple attachment intended to be fastened upon the inner side of the rider's cap. This small metal support, when in use, projects downward to a point just between the eyebrows of the wearer. Upon the lower extremity is a small clip to hold the eyeglasses, which are supplied with the outfit, and which are of plain These may in turn be replaced by the riders own lenses, if he is troubled with disordered optics When not in use the invention fulds back under the peak of the cap Slightly darkened or smoked glass affords ample protection from the glare of the sun The strong point in this invention lies in the fact that, whether the glasses be worn for protection or from necessity, they stay where they are put, and do not jolt off. They cannot come off unless the cap comes off with them.