AUSTRALIAN CRICKETERS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1128, 23 August 1882, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN CRICKETERS.

Every true colonist must feel a glow of pride at the remarkable success which has hitherto attended the visit of the Australian cricketers to England—the home and nursery of the “ noble game.” They have now played just 24 matches, of which they have won sixteen, and lost only two, the remainder being ‘ ‘ drawn ” —in cricketing technical parlance—which it may, however, be explained to the uninitiated does not mean that the result was a “ drawn game,” but only that the game was still unfinished when the stumps were “ drawn,” owing to lack of time to play it out. This is a very brilliant record. That the Australians were beaten in their last match, played against one of the finest teams of English professional cricketers that ever handled bat and ball, is not at all to their discredit. The Gentlemen of England beat the Players, but the Australians beat the Gentlemen. There is a large element of chance and luck in cricket as in whist, and it is doubtless due in a large degree to that fact that these two are the favorite national games of England. In both cases skill mainly governs the result, but the weaker side still has a chance on the score of luck, and is not necessarily doomed to fall a victim to the superior skill of the other side, as in the case of chess, where the question is really one of mathematical consequences. There are many chances which turn the fortune of a cricket match. In their first visit the Australians disposed of one of the strongest batting teams ever seen on a cricket ground—a Marylebone eleven of Gentlemen and Players, equal to an exceptionally powerful All England team — for only 19 runs. Noone will pretend to believe that this astonishing occurrence afforded a fair criterion of the relative strength of the Australian attack and English defence. The Australians, last trip, w’ere beaten by the Gentlemen of England in one innings, with one run over. This trip they beat the Gentlemen of England, curiously enough’ by precisely the same majority—one innings and one run. In a return match the result might again be reversed, and so might that of the late match against the Players, who, now victorious by one innings and 34 runs, might probably be defeated as decisively, The Australasians have held their own against every cricketing county in England, and it must be remembered that it is no uncommon thing for a county to beat All England on equal terms. Sussex, Surrey, Kent, and Gloucester have all done this at various times. Of the sixteen victories won by the Australians, no fewer than eight—or one-half—have been by one innings and odd runs. They defeated Sussex by one innings and 355 runs over; the United South of England by one innings and 263 runs over ; Gloucestershire—the erstwhile champion county—by one innings and 149 runs over. They have beaten the United North of England, Oxford University, Surrey, Lancashire (last year’s champion county), Derbyshire, Yorkshire (twice), Gentlemen of England, South of England, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire. A magnificent record this ! They have been defeated only by Cambridge University and the Players of England. All Australian colonists may with reason be proud of the laurels now being gathered in such wholesale fashion by their representatives in the cricket fields of old England.— “Evening Post,” August 15th.