MEMORABLE TO UR RE VIE WED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 921, 14 March 1930, Page 7

MEMORABLE TO UR RE VIE WED

M.C.C. ’s Lessons for N.Z.—Duleepsinhji’s Physical Attributes— Woolley a Model for StyleDominion Cricket Stronger + -fnr TU TV Cl'V T-.,, \ T.

FROM a playing point of view the M.C.C. team’s tour of New r Zealand has been of much benefit j to the Dominion, even if, because ; of the money that has to be paid out in fees for the professional members of the team, the financial : results have not been of assistance to the New Zealand Cricket Council. Useful lessons have been ; learned from the play of the tourj i.sts, especially in districts whose l cricketers have few opportunities of seeing polished players in i action ; interest in the game has been quickened ; and the visitors, popular throughout the Dominion, haye corrected some 'distorted views of the general attitude of English cricketers toward play, players and spectators in "these t antipodean lands.

occasional faulty strokes, without taking the trouble to become such a master of the stroke that correct playing of the stroke would be a habit. This weakness, which may account for the fact that he has not yet become a regular member of England’s team for true Test cricket, is exemplified in his hook-strokes, many of which are made when his knees are bent, causing liis bat to get a little under the ball and to hit the ball into the air. But most of Duleepsinhji’s strokes are superb. Curious to know what th ? answer would be, the writer asked Harold Gilligan, one day, what he regarded as “Duleep’s” best stroke. “It is impossible to say; he has so many fine strokes,” was the reply given by the M.C.C. team’s captain. Glancing with the eye of memory ever several innings that Duleepsinhji played against New Zealand and provincial teams, one is led to suggest that the stroke which most impressed his opponents was his latecui. In some places this has been described as a “chopping” cut. It is not, however, the “chop” that some players do impart to their latecutting. The Indian's extraordinary vision enables him to play the stroke at the last possible moment and to make his bat turn a little over the ball at practically the moment of impact, instead of “chopping” down on to the ball in the way in which some other players seek to obtain safety for the stroke. Wrist and eye work in perfect unison, and the ball leaves the bat at a great speed which is not lessened by a drive into the ground. The knack of partly turning the bat over the ball at practically the moment of impact is common to most of Duleepsinhji’s strokes, but it is noticed most in his cutting, and that is why the writer has made special mention of that stroke. But in reviewing Duleepsinhji’s batting again one has to agree with Gilligan that the Indian has too many line strokes for anyone to be able to point to his absolute best. The writer has bright memories of a certain peerless off-drive, and—but this is not a dissertation on Duleepsinhji’s batting alone!

Duleepsinhji has one other cricket trait that is worthy of notice. When lie Likes “guard” lie stoops a little over his bat, as most players do. but as the bowler makes his run he straightens to a more erect, yet still easy position, with the bat —gripped with the right hand close to the blade —just caressing the block-hole. Thus he gets a higher sight of the ball as it is leaving the bowler’s hand. The individuality in Duleepsinhji’s batting style is very interesting to cricketers. Doubtless many a New Zealand player will be trying to ape him as far as possible. But coaches may find it necessary to issue a warnTo be a Duleepsinhji, a player needs Duleepsinhji's physical attributes. The player who lacks such a combination of extra-sight, quickness of foot, suppleness of wrist, and litheness of body would do better to adapt to his own physical characteristics the style of the best English players.

For method of stroke-play, the best exponent in the M.C.C. for the aver-

age player to follow is Frank Woolley. Unfortunately, New Zealand did not see Woolley at his very best. He has got to the age at which one loses a •little of the resilience of spirit and body that is needed on a long sporting tour, and at which the ball is not sighted quite so easily and quickly as when one is in the twenties and early thirties. Woolley has still the same glorious range of strokes as of old, the same smoothness of play, the same sense of perfect timing when he does sight the ball properly. But he does not seem to be able to sight the ball properly all the time, and he not appear to have his old adaptability to varying conditions. At home in England, where his travelling for cricket is only from one familiar town to another, and where whatever changes in conditions may come are old things to him, he can still reel off century after century in his famous way. But one can understand now why he was not included in the English team which toured Australia in 1928, for all his high scoring in his own country. We have seen the Woolley

of old at times, though, and at those times he has been a splendid mode! for young players—an example of sue!

co-ordination of effort that exertion is reduced to a minimum. The true Woolley times the stroke so perfectly, and plays it so gracefully in the direction in which it should be played, that he seems merely to stroke the ball with his bat, even when it goes for a four. When Woolley is at his best, one understands how it was that the hits in cricket came to be called “strokes,” and not “shots,” as New Zealanders are becoming fond of calling them. The word “shot” connotes a certain amount of violence, an explosive effort, which is quite foreign to the strokes that Woolley plays. But if Woolley be the model for style, there is one man in the M.C.C. team who should be taken by young New Zealanders as the model for batting methods generally. Unfortunately only the North Island, and not the South Island, saw him in this tour. But some Southerners have seen him in Plunket Shield games in previous seasons. That man is E. H. Bowley, who was acknowledged—not before time — to be in the front row of English batsmen last season. A little bulkier than Woolley, Bowley does not seem to the casual eye to have the Kentishman’s easy grace, but he really has a very easy, polished style. He has practically all the strokes, and makes them with fine unison of mind and body. Fast approaching his fortieth birthday. Bowley has taken longer than the left-handed Woolley, who is three years older, to obtain wide recognition of his high skill as a batsman, and now that he has gained that recognition he has been showing in England, as well as in New Zealand, much enterprise as well as style in his batting. It is Bowley’s combination of enterprise with skill that young New Zealanders should heed. *There is no need to dissect the rest of the English batting on this tour, for it was largely a repetition of methods that have been demonstrated before. It was a very useful combination, though, for we get such demonstrations only at intervals, and there

♦ ever a tendency to pay more regard . the demonstrator from overseas ian to the home product. There was :<o the useful and pleasing demonration that New Zealanders can be>me, with opportunity, as good batsien as other lands can produce. Apart from that of the •‘freakish'’ Duleepsinhji, there was no better footwork in the M.C.C. batting than that of C. S. Dempster, who, as some of the visitors have said, would be among the very best batsmen in the world if he had the opportunity. Except for Duleepsinhji. Woolley and owley. the Englishmen showed us no ore pleasing example of varied roke-play than M. L. Page exhibited the Wellington test. In that match, o. J. E. Wills showed that he would ke high rank as a left-hand batsman he were able to play frequently in *st-class cricket. And there are her New Zealand batsmen who lack lly opportunity, not method. In the nature of things, the M.C.C. am's bowling could not show us allying new. but it did remind us of the lucity of really good fast-medium

and fast bowling in this country. Instead of misinterpreting the old saying that good bowlers are born and not made, cricket associations in the Dominion should, through their clubs, try to uncover good bowling talent that could be developed. Surely there is not a physical deterioration that prevents us from having good bowlers of some pace! One thing that our young bowlers have learned from the Englishmen—it it too late for our older bowlers to benefit from the lesson —is that a bowler who is above slow in pace should swing liis bowling shoukier forward at the moment of delivery. Too many of our medium-pace and faster bowlers finish their delivery with their bodies squarely facing the batsmen, instead of getting “devil" with a good follow-through. A good batsman, conserves his energy by timing and correctness of stroke-play, but a good bowler of any appreciable pace needs an explosion of energy, and He bowls with his body as well as with arm and hand. The force of that explosion of energy, of course, must accord with his natural pace. M. S. Nichols, of the M.C.C. team, is a good example of the application of bodily energy to fast bowling. But an even better example for the average bowler is S. Worthington. When Worthington was bowling, all his actions symbolised a concentration and then an explosion of energy.

When the ball was tossed to him he always walked quite leisurely back from the wicket, lightly tossing the ball from hand to hand once or twice. His run up to the wicket was a steady gathering of power, followed by a quick unloosening of it. Making much pace from the pitch, Worthington was a much better bowler on the tour than his average in the more important matches suggested; some New Zealand batsmen reckoned that, on the whole, and having regard for his consistency, he was the hardest bowler on the side to play against.

His bowling was a trifle more expensive than that of M. J. C. Allom and Nichols, and lie did not get as many wickets, in the tests, but, without Allom’s physical advantages and Nichols’s pace, he did impress as a consistently good bowler, who was always likely to get fine “bags” with a little assistance from wicket or fieldsmen. Apart from a couple of the biggest men in the team, the fielding of the M.C.C. side was very good; in the slips it was brilliant. There, of course, Duleepsinhji’s physical attributes had scope, but apart from him the work was excellent, as it should be when the workers are men well experienced in fielding in that position to plenty of pacy bowling. It must be admitted that the New Zealand fielding should have been better than it was, but our men need more practice. Home of the New Zealand out-cricket, except in the slips, was quite as good as anything that the M.C.C. team could show. Harold Gilligan was a fine captain, and a popular one.