LEAGUE CHAMPIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue CXXIII, 10 April 1937, Page 23

LEAGUE CHAMPIONS

CUSTOMS AGENTS'

SUCCESS

JENNINGS AS LEADER

Perhaps the most meritorious championship won in the ..Wellington Mercantile Cricket League for the season now ended was that of A grade, which went to the Customs Agents Cricket

Club. The 41 points gained by the club represent the reward . accruing from 17 matches, none of which was lost and only 6 drawn. They also represent a lead of 9 points over the run-ners-up, the Amalgamated Bricks Cricket Club. It must be admitted, however, that the honour of A grade champions has not been achieved by Customs Agents, without some very narrow escapes from defeat, notably the game against the runners-up (when they required 28 runs to win and had only one wicket in hand at stumps), and their last game—against Prestige— when an appeal against the light saved them,1 On another' occasion Sargoods ran them close and were only defeated by 12 runs. ■ :

: Whilst the happy state of being champion team is no doubt due to a very happy team spirit and to the general excellence of a well-balanced side, it is also due in a great degree to the enthusiasm and astuteness of the team's captain, Arthur A. Jennings. It is now a good many years since Arthur Jennings first started his career in the Mercantile League. When the Customs and Agents Cricket Club was admitted to membership he was appointed secretary, and held that appointment right up to the present season, when the Customs Department and the Customs Agents decided to form separate clubs, the Agents carrying on in the A grade and the Department being placed in the D grade. Although

Jennings was at one time chosen as a League representative for his batting and made some quite decent scores, he has in late years subordinated that part of his cricket to that of bowling. He has made a thorough, study of bowling, and by assiduous practice has now an immaculate length, and can turn the ball just sufficiently to beat the bat. He has during the last six. years in the A grade never failed to get 50 wickets, and this season he has taken 54 wickets. In representative games Jennings1 has been one of the League's stock bowlers for the last four years, and has had many successes, but perhaps his best performance was on Labour Day, 1936, when he togk five wickets for 29 runs against a strong Kilbirnie Club team. Elected to the management committee of the League at the annual gen.eral meeting five years ago, Jennings has rendered valuable assistance on that body ever since, and is at present chairman of two sub-committees—the judicial and the fixtures—and is serving the League in other ways also. At the beginning of last season (193j-36) he compiled and published a souvenir book containing a history of the Mercantile League, a copy of which was circulated to all registered members, and which was greatly appreciated, giving as it did all the past records and many valuable hints to players. It is men of his type that the League has to thank for the strong position it holds today in Wellington sports circles, and as long as such men are available to sit at its council table' the League cannot fall to progress. The Customs, and Agents Cricket Club to which most of the present Customs Agents members previously belonged, won the A grade championship on two occasions—in 1929-30 and again in 1932-33.