CRICKET.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 June 1921, Page 3

CRICKET.

W. w. ARMSTRONG. STORIES OF HIS BOYHOOD DAYS. The fact that the boy Warwick Armstrong preferred cricket to early rising in a. farm, where he had been sent for experience, at a salary of 5s a week, has resulted in Australia possessing a cricket genius Instead of another “cocky.” This interesting fact was disclosed by Mr. F. V. Catomore, manager of the London Bank, at a cricketers’ send-off accorded him prior to his departure to take up the position of manager of the Oxford-street branch of the bank (records the Sydney Sun). Mr. C.atomore has been a life-long friend of Armstrong, and he unfolded an interesting and little known page in the cricketing history of the great Australian captain, when responding to the toast of his health. “I remember,” ho said, “as a boy of eight or nine, a lot of us getting -together at Caulfield and forming a sort of cricket club. We found a bit of ground near an orchard siutable for a pitch, or, at least, it was good enough for us. A kerosene tin wicket, a red gum l:ome-tniade bat, and a solid rubber ball formed our material, and we named the club the Orchard Blossom. Amongst the players was a lanky, long-footed lad, who was my great friend, and was very enthusiastic and easily the best cricketer amongst us. We had many a game there, until one afternoon this lanky, long-footed chap lifted the ball clean over the fence in the direction of a nearby house. The ball couldn’t hit the roof or the brick wall and bounce off without damage—it had to go clean through a window. You couldn’t have found one of the boys three seconds after that happened. But the owner of the house not only stuck to the ball, ho also found out the address of the long-footed batsman, and sent him a bill for 4s 6d for repairs.

PAYING THE BILL. "That lanky,. long-footed lad was Warwick Armstrong,” said Mr. Catomork, "and in threepences and sixpences he collected part of the 4s 6d amongst us. The balance ho obtained somewhere, somehow, and the owner of the house was satisfied. But the Orchard Blossom Club went bung. “Warwi-ck Armstrong talked: nothing but cricket when he wins a lad,” said the speaker. "It was born In him. His father had an idea of making a farmer of him and sent him away to the country to a farmer who paid him 5s a week. But Armstrong preferred cricket, to rising with the lark, and he soon bolted back to Caulfield.” •

Mr. Catomore said that in his early teens Armstrong played with the Caulfield Club, which won the Knox-Kelly competition three years in succession, and was then admitted to the Boyle-Scott competition in Victoria. In one competition match—Caulfield v. Capulets—Armstrong knocked over 80. Ho was then only 16, and the performance brought him into prominence.

Armstrong's bowling as a lad, Mr. Cntomore says, was different to what it is to-day, for then he sent down a fast ball. He could square-cut with astonishing ease and grace, and it was his favorite stroke. A MATCH ABANDONED. “Y£s, Warwick Armstrong is a grand cricketer; I know something about what he's like with the bat,” said a Gundagai man, Mr. Akers, of the local railway staff recently. “I’ll tell you something about Armstrong/' went on Mr. Akers. “It was about 12 years ago that he came to Coolac on a visit Mingay-statlon—before he married Miss O'Donnell. I was living at Coolac at the time, and one Sunday we (Coolac) met Muttama. in a cricket match on our own wicket. Muttama arrived a man short, and seeing a big brawny young fellow drive up in it sulky with a Mangay man, one of the Muttama players asked him if he could play cricket and If so would ho make up their eleven. Muttama didn’t know who he was—none of us knew him, in fact. It was Armstrong, then at his best. He said he would be willing to oblige Muttama, but didn’t think he would be of much help—a sweet legpuller is Armstrong. ‘Oh, you can have him,' we said to Muttama; as we sized the stranger up and down. He looked like a half 'Johnny': kind of cove. His name went down in the scoring-book as ‘Stranger.’ Well, ‘Stranger’ went in, and we felt confident of gettlug his wicket first over. But, Caesar’s phantom, he gave us the surprise of our lives. He passed our bowling all over the ground. Every man in our team bowled at him, but sixes and fours came off h’s but like clockwork. We scratched our heads and ‘began to think. Then our tails went down when someone whispered it was Armstrong. He knocked up 84 In a very short time. Then he banged a ball very har'd, and it flew over the heads of our men in the Held and lodged in Coolaccreek, and we never recovered it. It was the only ball we had, and therefore we couldn't go on with the match.”