Cricket.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 38, 23 March 1901, Page 21

Cricket.

W. Mills was presented by some cricket enthusiasts in Auckland last week with a handsome ca*e of pipes for having made the most boundary hits in the recent tour of the Auckland representatives. A local bowling performance has been brought under my notice. In a recent third-class mateh — Phoenix v. Old Boys George and Frank Harris (brothers) obtained three wickets for seven runs, and seven for five respectively, the Old Boys' innings totalling 12 runs. "Passe-Partout" writes me commenting on the cricket in the WellingtonMidland match, and comparing it with the cricket of some years back but, as my comments were full and free last week, I cannot afford space for more on the same subject. There was no cricket k&t Saturday, the Basin Reserve being otherwise engaged, but matches will be resumed on Saturday. Wellington will meet Phoenix on No. 1 wicket, and Old Boys Midland on No. 2. The former match should prove interesting, for the Phoenix team is just now batting in good form, and may win the match. If they do, the Midlanders will win the championship — if not, it is almost certain that the Wellington and Midland teams will be bracketed. Great interest is beuig taken in Napier in view of the visit of the Wellington team at Easter time. The scribes there do not expect their players to do much — one of them asking the players selected for practice "to avail themselves of every or>r>ortunity, so that an equally meritorious result may be chronicled as was done m Hawke's Bay's last representative match." That was a win by considerably over an innings. The Wellington team had better look to their laurels.

The North and South Island match has fallen through for this season. In Canterbury cricket they seem to have a difficulty in finding umpires for cup matches, it being no unusual thing to find players taking part in the matches acting temporarily as umpires. A unique incident occurred in a match played at Temuka the other week. McCaskill, bowling for Temuka, bowled a no-ball, which clean bowled the opposing batsman. A second no-ball repeated the performance. Then the third ball again bowled the batsman, and this time the bowler got the verdict. When a man has to be bowled three times before he is got out it is a bit hard on the bowler. Mr. G. F. Harris, in writing to me, traverses the relative merits of Mr. I. Hyams and himself as scorer, someone having told him that the Midland scorer had stated that he could always get the better of the old gentleman for five or six runs in a match when they were scoring together. Somebody may have told Mr. Harris this, but it must have been meant as a joke, for I strongly hold the opinion that Mr. Hyams is one of our straightest sports. Club man he may bbande — and no one can blame him for that — but he is not the sort of man who would assist his club to win a match by putting runs on the score-sheet that were never obtained. Mr. Harris denies the impeachment, as naturally he would, and describes the manner in which he used to carry out his duties when acting as scorer for the Wellington Club, stating that any denlection of duty on the part of the umpires was bound to receive censure from him. Mr. Harris has always been considered by me to be an enthusiast in the game, and no one would be more pleased than myself to see him back in his old place in the scoring box.