Letter Box

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31007, 12 March 1966, Page 11

Letter Box

N.Z. CRICKET The valiant last-ditch effort by the tail of the New Zealand cricket team must not be allowed to obscure the team’s failure—a failure fully appropriate to the methods used. I was reminded of the schoolboy pasttime where a ring of players surround a batsman who covers his legs with a bat presented to the holder of the ball. In this posture the bat ceases to be an offensive weapon. The commentator called this kind of stroke “getting behind the ball!” And venturing only one foot outside the popping crease was praised as “using his feet.” Shades of Trumper and Bradman! A photograph of a visiting team clustered around the basman, like bees around a honey pot, should be presented to every school in the land.— POOR ENCOURAGER.

D. J. GRAHAM D. J. Graham had a streak of genius: there will never be another quite like him, to be sure. Many aspects of his play were competent only and will soon be forgotten. But a fantastic coolness under pressure, his knack of solving a complex, sticky situation with a simpto, unruffled calmness were incomparable, unique. This was the specialist to end all specialists: a cog which perhaps needed the rest of the machine specially suited before it functioned dynamically. Not every team needed him; some-saw nothing in him; some overrated him; controversy will abound. Eight D. J. Grahams would not make a good pack: but D. J. Graham coupled with a Tremain and a Burry was the world-beater. Oh, rare John Graham. FODION.