CRICKET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3054, 26 November 1908, Page 7

CRICKET.

'AUSTRALIAN ELEVEN. A POSSIBLE SELECTION. The selectors will soon be called upon to choose an Australian eleven to tour England next season. Compared with those who have to select the English eleven, they are handicapped, inasmuch as while in England first-class cricket is played nearly every day, the firstclass games played in Australia in a season can be numbered on the fingers. That is the reason why a player is hard to displace, if once ihe gets into the team. He has to ■do something extraordinary to be chosen, and once in he has few opportunities of disclosing whether he should be dropped or not. And similarly others who are knocking at the door have so few knocks that they cannot make themselves iheard. Supposing a new player discloses .good form in grade cricket. His State already has its eleven, and if .he happens to be in New South Wales, it usually takes more than one season for a new player to get into that eleven. Even if he does, he only gets half a dozen games in the season in first-class cricket, -and the odds are against him going higher. Consequently, if a team had to be chosen now, there would on performances be very few new men •chosen, as compared with the last Australian eleven, and as a matter of fact the composition of the team would be little different to that which last tcured England. Taking New South Wales alone, 1 the players one would expect to see in the team are Noble,\ Trumper, -Carter, Syd. Gregory, Macartney, and Cotter. From Victoria, Armstrong, 'Saunders and Ransford would be • drawn; Hartigan from Queensland, and O'Connor and Hill from South Australia. Very few cricket followers would suggest the elimination of any of these players, and yet tfcey are the men who had most to do with the beating of the Englishmen in Australia last season. If fourteen men are sent, with Laver as a playing manager, there are only two vacancies, and one of these must be filled by a second wicketkeeper. If thf next best 'keeper to Carter was selected, Gorry would probably be chosen, but as the second string is only wanted to give the first one a spell when occasion demands, -a 'keeper who. is also a batsman may be asked to go, and in these circumstances probably Gehrs would get the trip. That leaves only one place to fill, and in filling that the selectors are confronted with the problem whether to select a batsman, or a ,bowler, or a player who plays in both departments of the game. If a bowler, i:hen all the promising batting colts will have to further wait their opportunity. ' Batsmen of undoubted calibre, like E. F. Waddy, E. L. Waddy, Bardsley, Dolling, Mayne, and half a dozen others, will have to be put aside, yet what has any one of them done to justify any of the old hands being displaced in their favour. . Yet it looks as if they will have to wait, for it cannot be denied that the i weakness of the last Australian Eleven was in the bowling department. As a batting combination to draw from, Noble, Trumper, Carter, Gregory, Macartney, Ransford, Armstrong, Hill, and Hartigan are all right, but bowlers Noble, Cotter, Macartney, Armstrong, Saunders, and O'Connor do not look like getting tne best English Eleven out cheaply. If the vacancy is to be filled by a bowler, the views of the last Aus- j tralian Eleven captain, M. A. Noble, are interesting. In a conversation with the Sydney "Daily Telegraph's" cricket reporter, Noble was askerl if he thought Emery, the new bowLr, r who has played in only one big fixture—that between the first and second elevens of New South Wales —should go to Brisbane next month with the New South Wales second •eleven. Noble replied, "Go to Brisbane? I certainly think that he should play with the first eleven against Victoria in Melbourne, and , South Australia in Adelaide. I would j go further than that,' continued j Noble. "If I were selector, he would go to England with the Australian I Eleven. He does not know much now, but he is a sensible youth, and is willing and anxious to learn. I think he can be coached to make a great bowl er - With an obvious lack of bowling strength, there is a necessity for giving promising material every opportunity, and in Emery the material is there." Adopting Noble's view as to the excellence of Emery's howling, the team would therefore be:—New South Wales—Noble, Trumper, Carter, S. Gregory, _ Cotter, «. _ Macartney, Emery. Victoria RansA ford, Armstrong, Saunders. South f Australia—C. Hill, O'Connor, Gehrs. Queensland —Hartigan. '