The Globe. MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1875.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 361, 9 August 1875, Page 2

The Globe. MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1875.

"We have heard very little lately in regard to the proposed Intercolonial Cricket Matches which were, or are, to come off during the next cricket season. Are we to suppose that the whole idea has fallen through, or is there yet a chance of our being visited by the combined team from Sydney and Victoria, who are to teach the ignorant New Zealanders what the game of cricket really is ? If the affair has resolved itself, as there appears every reason to believe, into a mere " gate money " speculation on the part of the promoters, then, the sooner it is entirely ignored by New Zealand cricket clubs the better. But we must protest, in the very strongest terms compatible with politeness, against the assumption of the writer in the Australasian that the players in Australia know nothing of the strength of the cricketing talent in New Zealand. The writer in the Australasian may not do so, and his confrere in the Leader raay be equally ignorant, but such ignorance is hard to believe. Every English Public School boy or TJniveisity man who rises into eminence as a player at the National game, has hisname published in certain newspapers, which are read .wherever Englishmen are to be found. Of these players a certain number find their way to the Colonies, and, if any one wishes to gauge the actual strength of two elevens that have neTer met, he must do so from the starting point of two men who have played against one another as cricketers in the Old Country, and who are now members of opposing teams in their new home. Let us take an instance. "Whom would any one, as a judge of the game, select as the representative cricketer of Victoria ? There could hardly be any doubt but that nineteen men out of twenty would say —B. B. Cooper. Of course, no one would hold this gentleman up to admiration as the best cricketer in Australia " all round," but his name and reputation, combined with the averages which the scoring sheets can show, would entitle him to the first place in the cricket ranks of the colonies. Now, the gentleman we have selected for an example, though still a formidable

opponent to any eleven in the world, is (and he himself would be the first to acknowledge it) not by any means as good a player as he was in the days when he scorced 60 in the first innings, and 66 in the second, when playing in the Gentlemen v Players. Taking Mr Cooper as our starting point, we may say at once that we have at least two, if not three, as good batsmen as himself in New Zealand, one of them being an old schoolfellow and felloweleven man of the hero of the innings of 84 against the English eleven. It would be easy to show that the analogy extends to the other departments of the game, besides batting. The difiiculty in New Zealand would be in getting together the team that ought to represent the colony. But this difiiculty might be overcome by a little liberality on the part of the lovers of cricket. A very small sum contributed by each man who has a love of the game of cricket at heart, would be sufficient to enable a combined New Zealand team to meet our visitors on any ground in this colony that could be chosen for a match to test what the cricket of the country is worth, and if in this deciding instance the New Zealand team should be beaten, there can be no doubt amongst those who know the colony that they would take their defeat handsomely. With the regard to the absurd sneers of the scribe in the Australasian with regard to the cricket fields of this colony we can merely say that neither Melbourne or Sydney can show a cricket ground for the requirements of the game that can compare to that belonging to the Christchurch Cricket Club, though we must confess our pavilions, and the accommodation for players is not up to the Australian " form." As regards climate, as the game originated in England, and has been played there so many years, and as our climate is admitted to be a trifle superior to that of the mother i country, it is just possible that cricketers may manage to get through a matcn without fainting, even though they cannot have the thermometer standing at 100 deg., and the attendant luxury of mosquitoes.