The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1930 MISSIONARY CRICKET

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 906, 25 February 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1930 MISSIONARY CRICKET

ONE of the most charming features of the final Test match between the M.C.C. and New Zealand at Eden Park was the politeness of the spectators whose contribution of a thousand pounds toward the expenses of tlie English team’s tour helped to make the welcome enterprise a financial success. They suffered h great deal of mediocre play with admirable patience, and only allowed their good temper to become ruffled gently when successive batsmen on both sides refrained with masterly caution from striking the ball as ci’icket balls are meant to be struck. And there was much more of that sort of modern cricket than there was of'derision. So it can he said that if New Zealand cricket enthusiasts are not as discriminating as the Australian public they also are not so discourteous. Perhaps a little more of both here would not do the game any harm.

When the M.C.C. team was in Australia, it provoked some blunt and possibly churlish criticism of the mediocrity of its play. This was answered from England by an explanation that the team was a missionary one for New Zealand with the purpose of popularising the game in this Dominion. The Australian critics were silenced or soothed into courtesy. How has the team’s mission been fulfilled in its series of matches in a land still requiring missionary cricket ? It may seem to several polite commentators almost an exercise of heresy for anyone to say plainly that the result of the mission has been disappointing. Here and there, of course, even the most exacting of enthusiasts were treated to displays of splendid cricket. But these were like the spots on Tim Healy’s dog—only now and ag-ain. Much too frequently the test matches, in. particular, suffered or at least appeared to be threatened with the sort of sleepy sickness which, in England last summer, was a pronounced cricket malady, so bad, indeed, that the headmaster of Harrow raised a hornet’s nest about his ears for declaring that some of the best county teams merely set out “not to play cricket, but to get the points for the first innings lead” and giving “the most miserable example to the whole country of how games should not he played.” Such terse criticism as that could not be applied fairly tp all the matches played by the victorious M.C.C. team, but its play in the fourth and final Test came perilously near to deserving it. Safety first principles were overworked to” the last stage of polite forbearance and exasperation. Indeed, if all cricket matches were to be similar “one would rather go to bed than to a cricket match.” Mr. Gilligan was not in a missionary mood. His team played on and on for its first innings as though a kingdom depended upon the decision. If there had been real desire to popularise the game in a centre of population which does not normally find cricket absorbingly interesting, England would have declared at the luneheon % adjournment on Saturday, or even earlier, and provided an opportunity for a more exhilarating test. Of course, it has to be admitted that every man worth his salt always will play for a win, but in this case victory for either side was remote enough to be considered an impossibility. Thus, all that the spectators, including thousands who were gaining their first experience of test cricket, got was a tedious exhibition of generally dull, dogged and hopeless uphill fighting against long odds. To expect any finality in such circumstances was merely farcical anticipation. And the farce was completed when England began its short second innings with the tail trying to wag the dog. Nobody with a love of cricket would want to censure players for being afraid to take risks, but then no one would be justified in praising or encouraging dull and uninteresting play. Summed up, the test matches have demonstrated clearly that New Zealand’s greatest fault in cricket is slack and fumbling fielding. The Englishmen were perfect missionaries in teaching our fielders how to catch, and it is to be hoped that “the conversion of the heathen” here will be extensive and permanent. Bad fielding is had cricket. For everything that was good about the mission New Zealand will feel grateful, but something better should be given in the future.