HOLIDAY CRICKET

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 58, Issue 284, 4 January 1930, Page 12

HOLIDAY CRICKET

(Notes by "Stump,")

CRICKET OVER THE HOLIDAYS LOWRY IN HOT WATER

With championship competition games suspended over the holidays there was littie to interest supporters of the game. The only match having pretentions to importance was oue between Napier and Hastings representative teams. Napier won ihe match easily, O'Brien playing a fine innings for 107 in helping the homesters to make 295. The Hastings attack was not deadly, Brenton-Rule, a slow bowler with an extraordinarilv high flight, being the most successful, taking four for 61. Garrod, a fastish trundler, sivung the ball nicely, but was a littie erratic. He captured three for 60. The Hastings players found that, after the slow wickets at Hastings, they could not master the pace of the Napier pitches, and most of them were out to playing too Iate for the ball. Gulbransen batted crisply for 46 out of 113 and after his excellent wicketkeeping, lie must be considered when the next Hawke's Bay representative team is being chosen. Nairn howled very steadily -for Napier, taking three for 27, and was in fact, very successful iu all the lioliday games* having added a littie pace to his deliverv without losing length. Matches between seniors and juniors and two senior teams were also played, but these were purely picnic fixtures and were not taken very seriously. Though they servecl to keep the players in form till club games resunie they were of littie importnnce and performances in them were not of great value. THE HAWKE CUP* Manawatu followed up their feat of holding the Hawk^ _ Cup against Hawke's Bay by staving off Poverty Bay's challenge during the week. Scoring in the game was verv low. Manawatu made 176 and 193 and Poverty Bay 92 and 121. Set 278 to get to win in the seeond -innings, the challengers looked like pulling the game off when they had 100 up for only one man out. Then, however, a sensationai cliange came over the game, the wliole side being out for 20 more runs. Gallichan, tlie left-liand4 slow man, howling with effortless ease, did the hat"trick, dismissing three men in a maiden over each before he had scored a run. Gallichan took six wickets for 30 runs and took four wickets for no runs with ffve consecufcive balls. Gallichan scattered the stumps with machine-liko regularity, McVicar, Manawatu's study old vefceran, ably supported his friend, taking three ot the remaining four wickets for 40 runs. A feature of Poverty Bay's essav for the cup was the bowling of O'Couuor, who played for Scinde in Napier in 1925. He took six for 60 and four for 47 for the challengers. Bv tbe time these notes appear in nrint the game between Taranaki and Manawatu for the cup will he under way.

LOWRY'S OFFENCE Lowry, the Hawke's Bay and WeU lington captain, has brought a fard littie storm about his ears in Wellington hy deelaring Wellington's innings against Canterhury closed on the first day of a three days' match. It will be interesting to see what action, if any, will be taken hy the New Zealand Oricket Council iii connection with the incident, which waa done in all good faith by the Wellington captain and acquiesced in by the Canterhury skipper. These littie niceties in the" laws oi cricket have tripped up leaders in important engagements before to-day. It will be remembered that the Hon. H. Y. Tennyson, while leading England against Australia in a test match in England in 1921, declared the English' teanTs innings closed on the first day of the match later than one hour and forty miriutes before the hour agreed, on for drawing stnmps. Neither Tennyson nor Armstrong^ the Australian captain, was aware oi the provisions of the rule, hut oue of the members of the Australian' team, who was a walking encyelopaedia on the laws of the game, di'ew attention to the bi'each after ihe playerS had left the field, and the Englisli eleven had to retake their places on the field. The spectators at the match, whai were also un aware of the laws of cricket, which are as immutable as the laws of Medes and Persians, hosfcilely demonstrated against the Australian^ •for the reniainder of the afternoon. * * * THE ENGLISHMEN "Can our fellows beat the 1929-30 M.C.O. side?" is the question which! followers of the game are animatedly dehating from Auckland to Invercargill The firsrfc test match will be played at Christchurch, cominenoing on January 10, and we will have to leave iii to the respective teams to settle thq argument on the field of play. The English men are certaiuly getting plenty of soft-wieket practice in thej Dominion. The opening match against Wellington was interfered With by, rain, and eventually had to be ahandoned at the tea, adjouminent on thq fourth da.v. Rain dogged the M.C.C« team to Nelson, and followed them to Christchurch and Timaru. This persistent rain must make the Englishmen feel quite at home, but if they get much more of it there is a danger of Duleep.sinhji and Woolley beconiing weh-footed before the tour is over. _ The Plunket Shield matches wliich are to he played during the holidays should give the New Zealand selectors a good Hue to go upon in choosing the strongest New Zealand eleven to engage the Euglishmen in the first test match.