THREE-DAY TESTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 897, 14 February 1930, Page 7

THREE-DAY TESTS

A QLESIION which has occupied attention in cricket circles r\ for a number of years past is the severe time limitation on test match play in England itself and other parts of the Empire, with the exception of Australia. The three tests in New Zealand this season were limited to three days from the very beginning, and as Mr. A. H. H. Gilligan said on his arrival in Auckland, this has been a principle with all M.C.C. teams and the remedy lay with the powers that be. Under normal circumstances, it has beer, demonstrated time and again that three days are not sufficient for a definite decision to be arrived at, and it was a big possibility from the beginning that all three tests in New Zealand would be drawn. The uncertainty of cricket and the effect of rain intervened in the initial clash at Christchurch, however, and brought about England’s win in only two days’ actual play.

When the Marylebone Cricket Club imposed the three-day limit, it did so with the object of brightening up play, but this lias been far :rom the case in actual fact. There is, therefore, a strong case for efforts being made in the future to have four days allowed for test matches in New Zealand. When four days are alotted to inter-provincial fixtures, it seems to be out of place to curb test matches even further. If it is impossible to persuade the London controlling authority to grant four days for each test, it may he possible to have the final test played out, if there should happen to be no decision on the first two. This is the practice with Australian teams in England. The first four tests in the coming Anglo-Australian series have been limited to four days each, with the provision that if there is then no definite decision of the rubber, the final, game is to be played to a finish.

If neither of these alternatives is possible other means should be sought of increasing the time of play, and to this end there is no reason why play should not commence at 10 a.m. each day. This would make the day more strenuous for the fielding side after the hours to which players have been used, but it would be difficult to persuade the man in the street that this would not be oim way of assisting in the solution of the problem. With threequarters of an hour for lunch, a quarter of an hour for afternoon tea and the usual stop for liquid refreshment on a hot day, cricketers cannot claim to be overworked in a day when play commences at 11.30 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m.