CRICKET.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 148, 9 November 1912, Page 7

CRICKET.

The local season was nerved in last Saturday, and. favored \vii!i ideal weather, cricketers made ;.i very [pod beginning. It is satisfactory to note, that all the teams took the field with their full eompli iiu nt, with the exception of United Service, who, doubtless on account of the travelling involved, were one man short. Considering that many players had not been able to get in any practice, some very respectable scores were registered. The outfield on the Recreation (irouiid was fairly rough, and could have done with a little more attention.

New Plymouth are to be congratulated on their success against Law. No one will grudge them their win, surprise that it was. Towards the end of last season this team had often difficulty in getting an eleven together, and their initial success against last year's champions should put heart into their efforts this season. Mason contributed half of his side's tally with a very creditable display with the bat, which was enhanced all the more on account of the fact tliat it was the first time he had handled the willow since last season. Arden, who captained hie side, was unfortunate in being disposed of in his first over by being l.b.w. Williams knocked up 15 runs, but his innings was not chanceless. Bert Stohr made a bit of a stand with nine runs to his credit, and showed that he will be a man to: be reckoned with when he strikes form. In one respect, he is an example to the rest of the team, being a very keen run-getter. Without exception, the remainder threw away run after run. Harding, who has a style peculiarly his own, displayed a good reach, and carried his bat for double figures. His batting, however, mainly through carelessness, lacked finish, lie skied a very soft catch, which was badly missed by Shepherd. E. Holden is to be congratulated on his reentry into the cricket arena after a lengthy sojourn on the bank, and when he strikes .form again he will doubtless not have the misfortune to achieve distinction by contributing the only "duck" to his side. Sheppard and Monk, both young hands, did better in the matter of runs than some of the older hands that day. Law's crack batsmen failed to come'up to'expectations,'arid the tail being but poor material they suffered defeat. They had a lot of hard luck in both E. Lash,and A. Bewley, the first two men in, being run out. Greatbatch's three "sixes" were beautiful hits. He placed one on the bottom terrace, and then with his next hit lifted the ball on to the second terrace, while the other six' climbed higher. Once he put up a fairly easy catch, which was dropped by Harding. ■: In. I-L B. Reid, who contributed 18 runs, Law have a very promising bat. The bowling of both teams was nothing to write home about, while the fielding was atrocious, chance after chance going begging. R. B. Reid was a particularly bad offender in this respect.' If all New Plymouth were as keen fielders as Arden, "and if the whole of the Law contingent took after Lash, there would be. nothing to complain of in this department. The fact that New Plymouth obtained 15 extras to Law's 3, was mainly due to the lightning delivery of a Law trundleiyGreatbatch.

United Service made a good start in defeating Inglewood by 54 runs witli only ton men. Service's runs were well distributed, three players notching over 30, and a fourth 14. Perham was the only Service player who failed to open a scoring account. Inglewood's tally, however, included four "ducks." Owing to the wet weather the Thursday competition made an inauspicious beginning. The High School-New Plymouth game was the only fixture that eventuated. The Waitara ground was under water, necessitating the postponement of the Waitara-Inglewood B match, while Urenui sent a telegram to Inglewood stating that it was too wet to make the trip to that town to play the local A team. On account of the rain, the wicket was soft for the High SchoolNew Plymouth game, and high scores were not the order of the day. It was the school bnvs' first appearance in the lists of the senior competition, and the fact that they were beaten by 40 runs was in no small measure due to their nervousness and want of confidence. A feature of their innings was that only frre batsmen opened a scoring account, and one of them was dismissed for one run. and two others for three and four runs respectively. L. M. Monteath put up a plucky fight, surviving the bowling for 40 minutes. As soon as he cultivates some good scoring strokes he should he a very useful cricketer. A very small youth, by the name of W. Oliver, although he went out for a "duck,' lasted out several overs, and displayed surprising confidence for a player ot lus inches 4s regards the New Plymouth contingent, the skipper would have oeen better advised if he had put Robson on to bowl earlier in the proceedings. In Tiew of the state of the wicket it would be unfair to criticise the batting performances. . The Saturday competition will be continued this afternoon, when United .Service will meet uaw on the ; Sports Ground, and New Plymouth will journey out to Inglewood to do battle with the

local, eleven. , The following will play for New Ply-mouth---\rdcn, Hauling, Mason, Jewell, Zk! Hooker, Green, Okey, Stohr, Shep--pnrcl and Williams. The following will represent Law against New Plymouth, play to commence at 2 p.m. sl'f Elliott, E. r. Crea hatch, L La, ,r. R Anderson, H. Johnson, K. B. Kcid, 1 . R Held, G. Shepherd, A. Anderson, and ■W T n ell The North Taranaki Association has received an invitation to send a representative team to Wanganm abon Christmas time, and also from the Sou"' Taranaki Association to piny a representative match at Hav/eva at New Yea Tbe son of Mr. J. Board the J til known Gloucestershire cricketer, who ,a--nvo.l in the Dominion the other day, intends to take up sheep farming out here.

The South Melbourne team will probablv leave Svdney by the Maheno on December 11 for Wellington. The redoubtable Victor Tnunper «as i„ line form when playing for Gordon against Sydney last month, scoring US with strokes nil round the wicket Plaving lor North Sydney against letcr.ii.ii. on the same day, Long bowled sensationally, taking four wickets with four successive bowls. He finished up with five for 12. , To line batting performances ma ked ihe Australian v. South o England match at Hastings. Vine led ofl b} "oring 107 in 41.. 20min for the home idc. and he gave no chance Macartney (Svdnev) played just another inning* ab far as length went, but he scored faster, hitting 28 4's in his total of 17b. The bowling of Tarrant ami H. L. SiiiiiiH in the Wat innings of South Africa against Mr. L. Robinson's English Eleven at Old Buckingham was remarkable The former sent down 14 overs, of which 10 were maidens, his victims numbering five for only eight runs. The South Africans also fared badly against jVu'ues at Scarborough, the visitors being opposed by an eleven got together by Lord Londesborongh. Barnes was at his best, and took six wickets for 30 Although the Oval is not at present the best Ground in England for fielding, the Australians were seen to much

in any of their previous five test matches. The Field states that Macartney and Hazlitt were positively brilliant. Macartney had no chance of accomplishing any great feat, but he stopped many hard hits which seemed certain to produce fours, and his returns were so prompt and so easy for the wicket-keeper to take that no one attempted to run to him. Hazlitt had the chance of a lifetime, and took it. Spooner hit a ball from Macartney so hard and so low between forward square-leg (Hazlitt) and mid-on that in 99 cases out of 100 a four would have resulted. As it happened, this was the hundredth case, for Hazlitt, throwing himself to the left with his arm stretched to its full extent, not only grasped the ball a few inches from the ground when he was rolling over, but while still rolling managed to keep his hand up. Thus, for the third time this year, Spooner has been dismissed in a test match which deserved a four. It is likely that Hazlitt's catch will go down to history as worthy to be compared with the two famous catches made by Ulycett and Dr. E. M. Grace in test matches.

J. B. King figured prominently fov Philadelphia in their match against Australia. King, as a bowler, is past his best now—he was a magnificent bowlei (says'an exchange). Tall, rather awkward in his run and action, he delivered fairly straight ones right-handed, at fastmedium to fast pace, but the special hostility of his bowling came from his ability to make the ball "swerve." For many years now English cricket has been over-run with swerving bowlers, with George Hirst, perhaps, as the leading exponent. All of them, however, derived their swerve from the "two-fingers-round-the-seam" grip and the new ball, i.e., the more new and shiny the ball the more swerve was procurable. All of them, tooj swerved in the one way, the lefthanders swerving "in" to the righthanded batsmen, and the right-handers swerving "away from" the right-handed batsmen. English ericket knows only one bowler capable of making the ball swerve "in" or "out" according to will, and that bowler is J. B. King, of Philadelphia. He bowled the "in-swerve" and the '"out-swerve," as he called them, at will, and without giving the batsman any indication of which he was going to send down. Bowlers there have been —R. T. Crawford, for instance—who could bowl the "in-swerve," but with an an entirely different grip and action from the "out-swerve," so that the observant batsman always knew what to expect. King's swerve, however, was apparent.lv a true baseball swerve, one that onlv' began to take effect very late in the flight of the ball—i.e., when the ball began to approach the ground, so that the most discerning of English batsmen could not be sure about its direction till the last moment, one that he imparted at his top pace. He did not altogether rely upon this swerve; in fact, he bowled a good off-break, and he varied his pace with true and peculiar American subtlety. That was why English critics—those of them that have met King—hold him in such respect, and invariably class him as a world's bowler.

11l the' recent county match at Bath between Somerset and' Hampshire, W. T. Greswell, when howling, let the hall slip out of his hand, whereupon Stone, the batsman, ran down the pitch to hit it, 1 while Br'aund, who was temporarily act"ing as Wicket-keeper, called out to the bowler to throw him the ball in ordor to run Stone out. What might have been an interesting struggle was prevented by Bowell, the other batsman, picking up the ball and handing it to the bowler, who, of course, refrained from throwing it. The question arises whether Bowell could legally have been given out for obstructing, the field on the ground that he was interfering with the privileges of the bowler, whatever they may have been. But, in any case, his action illustrates the undesirabihty of a batsman touching the ball at any time when it is not undeniably dead. The occurrence was amusingly complicated by some of its details. Stone demanded that the ball should be put down for him to hit. To this the umpire answered, "You shall have another ball," but he nevertheless counted this irregular delivery in the six. The umpire stated afterwards that he would have given Bowell out for obstructing th«

field. , , Similar incidents have not been uncommon in first-class cricket. At Southampton on the old Antelope ground ones Hampshire were playing. Sussex, and Walter Humphreys, who visited Australia with Lord Sheffield's team, was bowling his lobs to Dr. Beneraft. A ball slipped out of his hand and went halfway, whereupon batsman and bowler ran towards it. Humphreys, who was a great stickler for etiquette, was furious «t the batsman's action, and called out to him: "You can't hit it!" "Can't I?" said Br. Bencraft, and he proceeded to hit toward* the boundary. When a similar case occurred in tha M.C.C. v. Lancaster match at Lord's in 1830, the bowler, Lees Whitehead, reeovered the ball before the batsman, A. N. Hornby, could hit it. The ball was thrown to the wicket-keeper and the wicket was put down, but Hornby clainaod that he had been obstructed by the bowler. The umpire at the bowler's end, Hay, referred the question to his colleague, Titchmarsh, who decided that Hornby was not out.