THE AUCKLAND CRICKET CLUB.

Auckland Star, Volume IV, Issue 1190, 15 November 1873, Page 2

THE AUCKLAND CRICKET CLUB.

The old English game of cricket happily is reviving in this colony in all its ancient glory like the welcome resurrection of spring time. We aay happily, because of ?U the sports tliat men pursue cricket is the purest, most inollensive, and the most bracing. Its characteristics are of too active a nature to permit of conceited swindles and scbemes of " Satanic joy." The cricketer bares his anus to the bat, and lifts his laugWng face skyward for the ha 11. The "sharp catch," " the floored wicket," " the stump out," are signals in favour of the lungs, and destructive to the sluggishness of the blood, The sunshinelights the features of the cricketer, except on a rainy day, and even a few scudding showers do not chill his enthusiasm nor " damp the generous ardour of his breast." He is for the time a blue-capped, red-sbirfced, and white-trousered child of nature, literally drawing milk from her .soft emerald bosom, fanned by her motherly breath, pud cheered to and fro from wicket to wicket by her sport inspiring music. This fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord 1873, will be noted in the pnnals of New Zealand as a very remarkable day in connection with the Ellerslie Cricket Club, and the iron horse snorting through fhe swelling skirts of the Domain to the enamelled meads in the neighbourhood of the Harp of Erin. This promising club, made of the best blood of the colony, has, we are glad to know, received very liberal patronage froTii the leading men of the city of AucWand ; it has also received very considerable jaid in the way of liberal donations from the gentlemen of the Northern Clubs. The ladies, moreover, have countenanced the Club by those genuine smiles wHoh the true cricketer approves and loves. Upwards of two hundred invitations to ladies and gentlemen have been issued, and at Ellerslie all sorts of sport will be provided for other thau ktnghts of the bat and ball, such as quoits, croquet, archery, ?'id other amusements. Members' subscription tickets entitle each member to a fair companion, hence a number of ladies proceeded to the field of emulation. A little before one o'clock a large concourse of spectators and cricketers assembled at the corner of Shortland-street to witness the start.