DID IT WITH SPADES

NZ Truth, Issue 1205, 3 January 1929, Page 12

DID IT WITH SPADES

How Otago and Wellington Dug In For A Bloodless, Drawn Game

(From "N.Z. Truth's"- Special Wellington Representative).

Very fortunately for both the Otago and Wellington cricket teams, fans m the capital city are not demonstrative like they are on the hill over m Sydney. The one and only Plunket Shield match played m Wellington between the two teams at Xmas time was about as dull a,s a wet week-end, and a riot would have been quite m order if it could have improved play.

NEITHER side was at full strength and patrons were faced with the prospects of a drawn game as early as Christmas Day or eight hours after play had commenced. Had Otago not suffered from the inferiority complex Arthur Alloo would surely have had the satisfaction of scoring a brilliant victory. . Instead of that Otago, i apparently overawed by the paper strength of Wellington, wusquite content to play for a draAV. With first use of as good a wicket as groundsman Brewe/ has made for years Otago compiled a, fine total. The opening was. not exactly auspicious, but as play proceeded things became brighter ahd brighter for the visitors. Three wickets were down for 88 and then ihe total went to 184 for four and to 323 for seven, the side being ail out two runs short of 400. Realizing. that the first five Wellington batsmen would have to master the bowling Dempster and Foley played the defensive game. Foley went with 43 on the board and five wickets fell after dull cricket for 189. runs.' Lamason and James improved matters, but with the: dismissal' bf the New Zealand 'keeper at 238 things looked really> bad. • ■ ' j Then McGirr joined Lamason and confounded his critics by hitting up a. valuable half-century when runs were sorely needed. » Lamason played delightfully all ' round the wicket towards the conclusion of his innings of 89 and Wellington finished with the respectable total of 351. It was at this stage of the game that Otago must have, decided that a draw would be sweet meat. Cecil. Alloo and Alec. Knight opened the second innings. They played the rock to such purpose that an earthquake would not have shifted them. Tom Lcwry tried out all his bowling, both known and unknown quantity, without result and Alec. Knight became about as popular as a mouse at

a slipper party of. flappers -when he took 144 minutes to compile 31 runs. Shades of the Alec, of old, one of v the hardest hitting and fastest scorers Dunedin has had for. years! And so they went on. Good bowling or bad, length stuff or tripe, it was all treated the same way and dutifully patted back to the puzzled tr'undler. When Galland joined Roger .Blunt on. the last day of play he ; smacked up the runs quickly, but the ex-Canterbury player was content to plod along to his century. Shortly afterwards he was' clean bowled by McGirr and that was the end of Otago. Left with 399 runs for victory Wellington soon dropped back into, the defensive role and finally rain upset any chiince of a definite conclusion. \Thc gamo ended m a draw with the averages siigntly favoring Wellington. ; The bright spots m the rather dull mixture served up were Badcock's first innings knock and his brilliant fielding, Arthur Alloo's . fighting century m Otago's : first innings, and the two rugged knocks by Lamason, one of Wellington's most improved players. Roger Bin nt was .hardly the Roger of old. His play was just as sound, but that crispness was missing. . Matt. Henderson, backed up by strong slip fielding, trundled really well for Wellington, while A. Alloo and Laurie Eastman plugged along for hours for' Otago. . Viewing the match ail m all Otago has quite a good spoiling side, while Wellington has slipped slightly. Whatever happens to Wellington between now and the end of the series cannot be blamed on to selector Ken. Tucker, however. Some of thc near stars let him down badly by preferring social tours rather than big cricket. "N.Z. Truth" does not hold with this and hopes that Ken. will win out^n the long run m spite of the difficulties he has had to face. j