CRICKET.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 January 1916, Page 11

CRICKET.

NOTES FROM EVERYWHEEB. A friendly game. 0 f cricket was played recently in Australia between an asylum eleven and a "scratch" team. The asylum men were batting, and the dexterous and successful work of the wickctkeeper was a surprise to the limited number of spectators sitting near the fence. When the fourth batsman was stumped an inmate of the adjoining institution leisurely walked up to the wicketkeeper and asked. "Which asylum do you come from'/" The player looked hard at the enquirer, and let the query pass. The wicketkeeper was a politician. ''One Who Knew Him," in the course of an appreciation of the late W. G. Grace in an English paper, writes: "The extraordinary success which the doctor met with in the cricket Held could always he attributed to the fact that he combined with his great skill a keenness which was extraordinary. Praise he always gave where it was due, but woe betide the player who slacked in the field. Apart from his great hatting skill —and it was like bowling at a brick wall when Grace was at the wicket —lie was an exceedingly clever slow bowler. He did not depend to a great extent on the amount of break he could impart, but the masterly manner in which he placed his field showed how deeply he had studied every phase of the game."

Howard Luscombe Rayner, the South Australian lfllfl Rhodes scholar, is not yet 20 years of age. Entering iPrinee Alfred College in 1908, his scholastic career has been one series of brilliant successes. In the cricket field he captained the college eleven in 1013-14, He first played district cricket for the University in the 1911-15 Reason, but did not meet with the success anticipated. However, this season he has thoroughly justified early expectations, and is undoubtedly (with Steele and Moves out) the most brilliant cricketer the students possess. He scores at a great rate, hitting with tremendous power, unfolding a .series of dazzling strokes, which he executes with marked ease, denoting the master hand. He opened his account at tlte commencement of the season with a brilliant innings of 10/ against Glenelg, and has since made several large scores. He heads the University batting averages. His fielding is faultless.

"Recreation: Cricket, Beagling." In the first edition of "Who's Who"—li>fi7 —that is the modest ending of the 10line account of himself furnished by William Gilbert Grace: the rest is devoted to his medical education, degrees arid practice in Bristol since 1879. But for more than 50 years the account should be reversed. His retirements from cricket were almost as numerous as those of Sims Reeves from the concert platform, and even the thousand pounds in shillings raised by a newspaper from an admiring public to purchase him a practice at Clifton left his doctoring as a recreation and his cricket as the business of his life. In his prime "W.G." stood at the cross-roads between the amateur and professional in cricket. It was a question of expenses, and in those days when the line was hard drawn and the Gloucestershire Club subsidised Grace with his expenses the professionals argued that he should play as a professional. And at that time it became the custom to provide sinecures for such amateur players as Ferris, of Australia-—and Gloucestershire. In the end it has evened outprofessionalism never ruined cricket, and every amateur who has drawn "expenses" should say "Grace" before his cheque.

An historical cricket ball was to be sold to assist the Wounded Soldiers' Fund in connection with the cricket carnival in Melbourne last week. "When, in August, 1882, Boyle bowled Pcate at Kensington Oval and Australia won its first test match on English soil, .T. M. Blaekham secured the ball, which he had mounted with a silver shield inscribed: "Grand Cricket Match, Australia v. All England, played at Kensington Oval August 28 and 20, 1882; Australia won by seven runs with this ball." On top of the shield two silver bats were crossed, with a ball in the upper angle. The famous wicketkeeper had been offered £SO for the trophy, but he prized it too highly. He later desired to present it to the Victorian Cricket Association as a token of his regard for the controlling body, and so that it could rest alongside another ball with which Harry Boyle accomplished a famous deed —the one that bowled W. C. Grace for the first time in Australia. However, the promotion of the patriotic games afforded Blackham a chance of helping the soldiers, and he readily availed himself of it. "I wish T could go," he said. "I could shoot all right, but the marching might find me out." The ball, is not Blackliam's only donation. An autographed bat with which he scored over 1000 runs will also be disposed of for the benefit of the fund. An interesting reminiscence of one of the late G. R. Hazlitt's bowling feats in England appeared in a recent number of the Sporting life, in the course of a sympathetic article on the Sydney cricketer's death. In England in 1912 all his best work was done with the ball, but in the triangular test matches he did nothing remarkable until ihe concluding match at the Oval—a game notable for remarkable bowling performances, very good and very bad batting, and rain. In that game Hazlitt finished .off England's second innings by taking five wickets for one run, and, as was not illogieally suggested at the time, thereby lost Australia the match! The circumstances will be easily recalled. The game, if brought to a definite conclusion, would settle the championship of the tournament, and in view of that fact it had been allotted a week if necessary. Thanks to the weather, however, there seemed every prospect of play lasting into the fifth da}', when, on Thursday afternoon. C. B. Fry and ,1. \V. H. H. Douglas were together in England's second innings, the score being 167 for five wickets, and England leading by 301 runs. Then Hazlitt went on for Whitty. Bowling magnificently on a pitch which gave considerable assistance to his off-break, he got Fry caught in the slips, Douglas leg before, and Smith, Barnes and Dean out without scoring, his analysis for this part of the innings being: Overs. 4.4; maidens. 3; run, 1: wickets, i>. In the whole of the innings Hazlitt took seven wickets for 25. But then the irony of (lie position was revealed. Australia, wanting 310 to win on a treacherous pitch, lost wickets steadily, while gathering clouds heralded the return of rain. And withing half-an-liour their defeat became an accomplished fact, for in the neighborhood of five o'clock the rain poured down, and ceased not during the remainder of the week. Thus 'the effect of one of the most remarkable performances in test-match history was that the side for which it was accomplished lost a match which otherwise would not have been completed'