CRICKET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3088, 9 January 1909, Page 5

CRICKET.

The following team will represent Carlton against United, on the Park Oval this afternoon :—Moss, Voyce, Styles, T. Hoar, A. Hoar, F. Welch, Swan, L. Boyd, E. Welch, W. Barlow, W. Lett. The following will represent Carterton against Masterton, at Carterton, this afternoon : —Hart, Hutcheson, Elliott, Feast, Gallon, Hansen, Tunneciiffc, Ticehurst, Phelps, Sievers and Smart. A writer in the Auckland "Star" thus discourses on "the saving the game" tactics adopted by the Auckland cricket team in last week's match with Otago: —"I was very much distressed to hear people congratulating the Auckland team on staving off defeat by its masterly inactivity. Now, in my humble opinion, if the Auckland team is better than the Otago team, it ought to be able to hold its own by playing the game, and it ought not to be content to claim the Plunket shield by such a subterfuge as refusing to play the game out. Of course, I don't know exactly what the Auckland captain said before the match started or what the Otago captain understood was to be done about drawing stumps, but I do say that considering the circumstances it would have been more sportsmanlike for the Auckland captain and his men to try to make the runs in the time, or to make a sort of effort to get the match played to a finish. As It stands, Auckland keeps the Plunket shield, not because it has a better eleven than Otagc, but because by refusing to play cricket in any ordinary sense of the term its men were able to prevent the other team from winning the match in the time, allowed. If there are people who like to hold a trophy nn those terms, all I can say is that they must have enjoyed the last innings iof the Otago-Auckland match, but [ I don't think anybody elae did."