AUCKLAND’S CHANGING FORTUNES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 568, 22 January 1929, Page 11

AUCKLAND’S CHANGING FORTUNES

Wellington Dismissed Reasonably, But Bowley Goes at Critical Stage

YESTERDA Y’S PLA Y REVIEWED

THE end of the third day’s play in the Plunket Shield match at Eden Park left the position much as it was on Saturday night. Thanks to fine bowling’ by Dunning and Allcott and solid fielding, Auckland did well to get the Shield-holders out for 241; but the handicap of nearly a hundred runs deficit on the first innings looked like becoming a millstone round Auckland’s neck when Bowley, the matchwinning batsman of 1927, lost his wicket cheaply in the closing stages of yesterday’s play.

When the game was resumed in tlic morning, there was a faint hope that Player and Rowntree might come to light, but it was soon extinguished when the wicketkeeper snicked one of Henderson’s deliveries to Foley in the “gulley,” with only four more runs added to the score. Auckland was all out for 311, a good score in the circumstances, but not quite good enough to enable Auckland to start off the second part of the match, on anywhere near even terms.

Allcott claimed Lambert at small cost Wellington all out l'or 241. DUNNIN G—ST UNNING

A regular McNamee on a wearing wicket, Dunning was always troubling the batsmen in the afternoon, pads, fingers and unprotected bodies all suffering under liis fiery onslaught, tie bowled magnificently (10 out of 33 overs were maidens), and had he been spelled a bit in the heat of the afternoon, would have done even better. Allcott was his usual sound and consistent self, despite a sore bowling shoulder, which possibly accounted for the necessity of Dunning having to bear the brunt of the attack. Bowley’s work in holding up the Wellington batting early in the day until the faster men could make use of a slightly crumbling wicket must not be forgotten. Save for one or two lapses, the fielding was sound . - and good, with Alan ™ Player, the old warhorse, positively and astoundingiy brilliant. Like Middleston on Saturday, it seemed as if he couldn’t go wrong. With 334 runs to get to win—a sufficiently formidable task for a fourth innings Bowley and Mills, with the full knowledge that much depended on them, opened Auckland’s second innings at 4.45 p.m. Bowley started with an air of breezy unconcern, intent, it seemed, on shaking off the inferiority complex that threatened to take possession of himself and the side. It was clever generalship as well as entertaining by-play, and (more’s the pity) Bowley did not stay long enough to see its full effect in shifting the enemy from its annoying, but quite justifiable attitude of moral ascendancy.

Henderson, with five for 90, repeated liis sound success of two years ago. Judiciously used by Lowry, he got the most out of himself and the wicket; and he lias always shown a fondness for the Eden Park turf. What more is there to say! WELLINGTON’S GOOD START When Hiddleston and Dempster started off to take full advantage of a true batsman’s wicket before the sun came out to dispel the dampness of early morning, there were many sombre faces in the Auckland camp. By sound, unruffled batting, the Wellington pair sent the score mounting into the sixties and seventies, and looked as if they could go on to three figures with ease. Then came Bowley, the only man of the side who could spin the ball under the conditions then ruling. The coach started to send up his twisting, flighty deliveries, and Dempster, far below his usual brilliant form, fell into the spider’s web. Whitelaw, lean and angular, leaped high and hard for a mis-timed half-volley, and held the catch like a veteran. Then a Wellington “rot” set in. After a brilliant, hard-hitting display, rivalling Gillespie’s batting on Saturday, Hiddleston hooked one into Player’s capacious hands at mid-on, and Lowry, after 20 minutes’ unhappy tenure of a quickening wicket, spooned an easy one to Player again. Three for . S 4.

The first Auckland wicket put on 51 when Bowley, failing' to get a full sight of one of McGirr’s fast ones, had the mortification to see it glance off his pads on to the wickets. He had played the sparkling cricket of a batting artist for his runs. BRILLIANT MILLS INI ills carried on with Postles till 6 o’clock, the Eden “Rock-of-Ages” taking a-quarter of an hour to open his account. Mills, p— —————— in the meantime, had been playing magnificently. Never before at Eden Park has he unfolded such a brilliant range of scoring shots. It may be said that the English tour added 50 per cent, to his stroke play, but yesterday he was a full 100 per cent, better player than in the match at Eden Park two years ago, when Stan Brice trapped him on his favourite leg stroke. That was a long-remembered lesson to Mills. Yesterday, all the leg traps and off theories in New Zealand could not have stopped him from scoring in that graceful, effortless fashion which is the tamp of the master. His 39 not on was the acme of batting perfection.

Came Worker again, to shatter Auckland’s hopes of a batting collapse, and to pile up the biggest aggregate of runs against his own home town that is remembered in Plunket Shield cricket for many a day. He took 20 minutes to open his score, seldom looked comfortable in getting his first 20, but was there all the time—a trim, tantalising figure, the stumbling-block of Auckland’s hopes.

For the greater part of the afternoon, Worker held the fort under as fierce a test as could be applied. The wicket was fast developing a raw edge, Dunning was crashing down his flying deliveries with vim and venom, and Allcott and Co. maintained a steady consistent pressure at the other end. Lamason, James and Foley all went (James undeservedly, Lamason after a gallant fight), and still Worker batted on. At the tea adjournment be was 73 not out, and looked like realising his great ambition—-a double century in a Plunket Shield match. The queer pranks Fortune plays in the game of cricket were never better exemplified than by Wellington’s sensational collapse after tea. Dunning, overworked as he had been before the interval, took a. new lease of life. Allcott himself rose to brilliant heights. In his first over after the adjournment, he got Worker with a ball that Tate himself could not have bettered — an overspinning delivery which came back sharply under left-hand action, and wrecked botli Worker’s hopes and his wicket. Dunning cleaned up the bulky Rotherham and McGirr, and