CRICKET.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 262, 14 November 1901, Page 3

CRICKET.

ENGLISHMEN NOT YET GOT LAND LEGS. Bj Telegraph—Pres3 Association— Copyright Sydney, Nov. 10. Critics attribute the collapse of the English team chiefly to their not yet hawng got their land legs. Melbourne, Nov. 10. The Victorian team chosen to play against England consists of Armstrong, Collins. Fry, Graham, Laver, McAlister, McLeod, McMichael, Saunders, Stuckey, Worrall; emergency, Carlton. 111-health prevents Trumble from playing. QUESTION OF UMPIRES. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright Sydney, Nov. 13. A special meeting of the Cricket Association refused to recognise Maclaren’s claim to the appointment of one umpire in the matches against the English team to be played in New South Wales.

A London correspondent writes under date September 27 : —Cricket i 3 dead for eight months to come, and now all cricketing interests centre in the team which Mr A. C. Maclaren is taking out to Australia for the coming summer in the colony. Various criticisms of the team have doubtless reached the antipodes. I have had opportunities of watching the play of most of the members of the team, and I do not hesitate to characterise it as a good one, although, assuredly, it is not anywhere near the last one taken out by Mr A. E. Stoddart, judged by its English form this season. It includes several capital bats and fields, but is most deplorably weak in first-class bowling, especially of the faster type. The only really fast bowler is I James, a novice, who has so far |bad virtually no experience at all in first-class cricket, -fessop was a good fast bowler last year "on his day,” but did nothing this season. The absence of Rhodes and Hirst, who won for Yorkshire her championship this year, and also of Fry, Abel, anti Ranjitsinbji, the crack bats, renders it impossible to regard the team as really a** representative one. 15ut Jessop, if in his best hitting form, is a wonder m himself. His style is as ugly as it is effective ; but there never before was a batsman who scored so many runs in so short a time as ho can and docs. As for Maclaren himself, judging by his result, he is a mere shadow of the man who made the record individual score of 424 off his own bat in one innings. Nails there a wicket-keeper of really tip-top rank. However, the team may win matches in spite of all these weak points. Victory is not always with the strong in cricket.