WHAT IS A CHANCE?

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 117, 21 January 1926, Page 8

WHAT IS A CHANCE?

; SUTCLIFFE’S “ NINE LIVES,” l ! A Tale of Dropped Catches. M. A. Noble, the noted cricketer, in his hook on the tour of Gilligan’s ’ men in Australia, has a section en--1 titled “ The cost of dropped catches.” In it Noble states that Sutcliffe, the 5 Yorkshire, player who did so well in ' the test games, received nine “ let- ‘ offs ” which cost Australia 507 runs. ■ As Sutcliffe scored 734 runs in his • nine Test innings, it seems remark- ■ able that 507 of them should be attributed to good fortune. ! This i-aises the question as to what : is, and what is not a chance ? Who ■ can say ? A little thought on the > subject reveals that it is a very 1 thorny question, and one that should 1 he thoroughly understood by critics, s What may strike a man in the 1 pavilion as a possible catch may seem 5 to a man in another part of the 1 ground as a perfectly safe stroke. A » chance to a tall man would not neces- 1 5 sarily be one to a man six ' inches • shorter. Neither might one to a 1 right-handed fieldsman be one to a ; left-hander. Similarly, a brilliant • fieldsman might get the tips of his fingers to a ball, which a slower mov- : ing colleague might not get within ■ yards of. The whole matter bristles i with difficulties, though there are of 9 course misses in the field which arc 9 so patent to all that no one can be deceived. In a great many case?, however, fieldsmen are blamed, and batsmen described as lucky, for sup-

posed “let offs” which should on no ( account be taken into consideration. I Davy Denton, the great Yorkshireman, earned the soubriquet of lucky Denton, yet Hobbs has said that he never considered Denton lucky in the sense that he was supposed to be. Denton was an attractive batsman who scored quickly, and always hit hard. His shots left the bat so quickly that often when going in the direction of a fieldsman they were past the player before the hands coulcl be cupped properly. Luck plays an important part in cricket, and the game would certainly suffer if it were eliminated. It is a time-honoured maxim that “ good fielding makes weak bowling strong,” and another is that a dropped catch may lose a match.” A batsman who can make thirty to forty runs is often through slack fielding a passenger in a side, but nevertheless it is well that great care should be taken by onlookers to be certain of their ground before condemning either the batsman as lucky or the fieldsman as slack.