How the Australian Team was Selected.

Manawatu Herald, 6 October 1896, Page 3

How the Australian Team was Selected.

A very readable article on " The Australian Cricketers " appears in the August Number of the Windsor Magazine, from the pen of Mr Fred. A. McKenzie. " The selection of the Australian team was a task compared to which the choice of a ministry is a trifle. Every colony is firmly convinced that it has enough good men to fill at least half the places in the team, and that nothing but the jealousy of the other colonies could prevent this honour being given to it. The duty of selection lies finally in the hands of the Australasian Council, a body of twelve membera drawn in equal parts from each of the three prinoipal cricketing colonies, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. The Council leaves the work in the hands of a committee, composed this year of Messrs G. Giffen, W. Bruce and T. Garrett. When the names picked by this committee were made known early last February a cry of disappointment went up from all over Australia. Every colony asserted that rank injustice had been done to it, and some critica went so far as to deolare that even if the team won every match in England still they would be a bad choice, because those left out oould have done much better. No one could understand the omission of the names of Clement Hill, Turner the Terror, and A. E. Trott, whose record againßt Stoddart's party secured him such fame. It will be remembered that Turner was kept out of the great Anglo Australian match at Melbourne last year, and after all was over Stoddart went up to him and solemnly thanked him for having contributed to the English success — by his absence 1 Many appeals were made to the Australasian Council to overrule its Committee, but the Council (wisely, as it has since proved), remained firm except on two points. Clement Hill was added to the team as a fourteenth member at the last moment, and Harry, the famous fast bowler, had to make way for another, J. J. Kelly, greatly to his wrath and disappointment. "