Cricket Criticism by Bill Bowes

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 821, 22 April 1955, Page 15

Cricket Criticism by Bill Bowes

"(.)F your batting, especially after the second innings at Auckland,, what can I say to .be kind?" Bill Bowes, former England and Yorkshire fast bowler, smiled ruefully as he addressed the microphone at 1YA. There was, of course, nothing much he could say, but for New Zealand’s fielding and bowling he was able to offer some encouragement and some valuable criticism. Mr. Bowes, represented the Yorkshire Evening News and the M.C.C.’s recent to Fe Australia and New Two days before he left Auckland for Home he recorded four talks, which will be of great interest to cricketers and all followers of the sport. They are called Cricket Down Under, and are at present being broadcast by LYA. They will be heard later from other stations throughout the country.

Bill Bowes is an experienced broadcaster and speaks with a soft and pleasing accent. He has given talks on cricket for the BBC and has done commentaries for television. He is a powerfully-built man standing 6ft. 4%4in.. and was a stalwart member of Jardine’s "bodyline" touring team which visited Australia and New Zealand in the 1932-33 season. In first-class cricket he took a total of 1601 wickets and claimed a bowler’s century in each of nine consecutive seasons before the war. The technique of Australian batsmen is not good, he says. Playing on pitches which are as hard as concrete they find the ball comes off ‘straight and true. They have lost the art of playing the straight bat and this has been the cause of their downfall. Against bowlers like Tyson, Appleyard and Wardle, who made the ball deviate even on Australian pitches, it was suicide to. play across the flight of the ball. There was

not one Australian player whom Mr. Bowes considered outstanding. He had not seen one whose batting was technically correct. New Zealand pitches, on the other hand, are too soft and too slow. The bowling is negative and makes no. attempt to force the batsman into making mistakes. If New Zealand bowling were more aggressive batsmen would = be forced to fight for runs instead of waiting for the odd bad ball. But bad balls were few and far between when an overseas touring side visited this country, and that, thinks Mr. Bowes, is partly the explanation of New Zealand’s collapse in the second Test. Only two New Zealand batsmen impressed him. Sutcliffe he regards as the best left-hander in the world, and John Reid he considers an all-purpose player who would get into a first-class team anywhere.