N.Z. CRICKET TOUR

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 182, 19 August 1937, Page 7

N.Z. CRICKET TOUR

Our Owxi Correspondent.)

£1500 Loss Anticipated PREVI0US DEBITS

(Prom

LONDON, July 30. Unless the uuexpected fiappens, tfie New Zealand cricket team is likely to finish its tour of England with a loss of about £1500. It is understood that it is in almost exactly the same financial position to-day as were the New Zealand plaj-ers at the eorresponding date of their 1931 tour. This means that, assuming gate takings and conditions are normal between now and the second week of September, the debit side of their balance-sfieet will shoAV the figure mentioned. "A continuance of their batting form against Surrey would, of course,, tend to reduce the figure," writes Roland Allen in the Evening Standard.- "The loss," he points out, "will not be shouldered by the New Zealand Cricket Council who, indeed, having been heavily down on the M.C.U. A u strali a n -N ew Zealand tour of 1935-36, because of the bad weather, could not sustain it. It will fall on certain good friends of cricitet in the Dominion, who have guaranteed the trip. It was, in fact, these anonymous sportsmen who made tlie tour possible. "None of the New Zealand visits to England liave, I believe, sliown a profit. When the financial side of tho next tour is discussed they will, I imagine, press for at least one reform — the removal of the Old Trafford test match to a locality where such an event would be a novelty. Cardiff, Hove, Canterbury or Bristol are possible alternatives. At Bristol New Zealand drew its biggest gate of tbo tour, apart from the first test match."