AUSTRALIAN CRICKET

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 78, 24 December 1937, Page 13

AUSTRALIAN CRICKET

THE TESTIM0NY MATCH The testimonial match in Adelaide to V. Y. Richardson and C. V. Grimmett, having run its disappointing length, thanks to disappointing batting and to bad weather, offered no materiai help to solve the Australian eleven riddle, comments Not Out in the Sydney Referee. On the other hand, the breezier and better cricket of M. Sievers may have intensified the problem. It is left to the Sheffield Shield matches to provide more intimate impressions of the younger players and give greater assistance to the selectors. These matches, started on December 11 and take place in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Sydney, Brisbane and finally Adelaide, in that order. The first-class match programme will conclude with the 150th, anniversary match in Sydney when elevens led by Don Bradman and Stan McCabe meet in February. This, however, will be played after the team for Enzland hMJjeen chosen,- ;V ; vl '*

would be Inured to the ordeal of the solid scrummaging that was fequired to subdue the All Black pack at Auckland. . . . "Old Timcr's" GrowL ti j Nel recelvea a .most lntereatffig letter from an Old Tinjer after the rubber had been woii. "Old Tijner" had a most forceful and frank .way

of expressing himself, and her® Is what ha wrote to the Springbok eaptain: — . "I must admit that though you gave us a thorough trouncing in that final Test, I enjoyed it the most of the three. You players did some things there that ought really to go into a Rugby text book. Looking back calmly, I reafised that a horriWe thing would have happened for the game here had New Zealand by some fiuke managed to win the game. ".We would have sat back with thumbs entwined and chloroformed ourselves into believing that w® were still good. "You hit us with a nioe, broad-faced, flat shovel on the second button of our waisteoat of complacency, and boy, can't you hear us bouncing yet? ".We have been slipping for years. One cause has been the dictatorship of the sideline captains and the efforts of Rugby politicians to speed up the game. I have sat and writhed while the Solomons in council have brought forward amendments to improve the game. It was like .chromium plating duU gold. ' "Two Birds"— Deod. 1 "Give Mr. Craven my regards. Tell him he has killed the wing-forward bird. "Another specimen that is in ®xtremis is that rooster— the ever-pene-trative, make-an-opening, cut-in, lose-his-backs five-eighth. Your Mister White is the criminal in this case. He hit that rooster an awful blow on the side of the neck just as he was getting prime and fat. There is a forward or two in your side I could name as occomplices in finishing off this rooster I have mentioned. . . "Don't think too poorly of us. * ^ We shall come back all right!." Not So Friendly. Not all the letters that the Springbok captain received were so full of praise. One, from an Australian who had watched some of the kicking to touch in the first Test in Australia, considered that the team did not know how to play bright football! That was before a single match had been played in New: Zealand, ' * ^