CRICKET.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3592, 3 August 1912, Page 9

CRICKET.

TRIANGULAR CONTESTTHE TEST MATCHES. August s—At Nottingham, Australia v. South Africa. August 12 —At the Oval, England v. South Africa. August 21—At the Oval, England v. Australia. ANOTHER ABORTIVE TEST. (By “Short-Slip.”) Once again has England and Australia met to no purpose in the triangular contests. In the first match, neither side completed an inuigs, owing to the three days allotted being affected by rain. England declared with seven wickets down, while at call of time Australia had lost seven wickets for 28 runs less than England had scored for the same number of wickets. * * * In the match at Manchester on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last, rain again sadly interfered with play.

’Five game did not start until nearly 3 o’clock on Monday, only an hour and a quarter’s play was possible on Tuesday, and the flood gates of heaven opened so wide on Wednesday as to cause the match to lie abandoned. * * * England did well to score 203 on such a soft pitch. * * * To Wilfrid Rhodes, the stalwart Yorkshireman, belongs the credit of scoring nearly half the total. He had a slice of luck in being dropped at point by Hazlitt before he had scored, hut thereafter went for the howling, and with forceful -driving' and crisp cutting rail up the splendid score of 92. * * ♦ Whi tty and Hazlitt bowled well on the second day. England resumed with six wickets down for 185, but they were only able to add another 18 to their t-otal. -:*■ * * Whitty sent down six overs without a solitary run being scored off him, and captured Rhodes’s wicket. Hazlett bagged the other three. * * * As I predicted in these columns when the Australian tour started, three days-are all too short in which to complete a test match. Three days would not- see finality even if the weather was fine, but with such a variable climate as that of England, where stoppages through rain, of. almost weekly, occurrence, two strong sides might play for a. liftetime without finishing a test match within the space of three clays. * •* * By the way the cable man muddled up the teams for the last test rather badly. General surprise was expressed when the English team came through without- Barnes’s name appearing, and yet be played. K ellew ay’s name was also missing from the Australian side, and yet the tall Sydneyite was in his accustomed place.

£740 FOR A SEASON’S CRICKET

WHAT THE AUSTRALIANS WILL

MAKE

Although the actual figures are kept very dark, it is not difficult to arrive at an approximate estimate of what the Australian cricketers make out of touring in this country, says Pearson’s Weekly. The sum is about £7OO per man. This figure is based upon the estimates of the Board of Control for the 1909 Australian cricket tour in England.

For that tour the Board of Control estimated the Australians’ share of the gate and other receipts from matches at £IS,OOO. Six thousand pounds of that amount was to be put aside for travelling, hotel, and other expenses, and the remainder to he divided among the players at the discretion of the board.

How nearly these estimates worked out in the end one does not know, but, assuming that they were pretty near the mark and that the- same system is adhere to this trip, the bal-ance-sheet of the tour must be, roughly, as follows : Income—£lß,ooo.

Expenditure—Expenses of tour, £6000: to board’s funds, say, £1000; total, £7OOO. Balance divided among fifteen players, £II,OOO. WHAT ENGLISH CRICKETERS MAKE. Thus, if financial expectations were realised, each player pocketed over £7OO clear on his four months’ cricket. Truly, there are many worse ways of earning a living than by being a first-class “amateur” cricketer in Australia!

It is, apparently, far better than playing the game professionally in England. The ordinary county player her© is lucky if he clears £l5O to £175 on his summer’s work, while English players chosen to go abroad by the M. 0.0. receive a fee of £3OO. In the days before the Board of Control stepped in and took command of the finances the Australians seem to have made rather more out of coming to England than they do now. Writing in the National Review some years back, Sir Home Gordon, the great cricket authority, said that, ‘ ‘lt is no secret that the Australians consider that each member of their touring side should receive nearer £BOO than £600.”

How very near the truth these remarks were is shown by extracts from

the balance-sheets of the 189 G Austral ian-Ehgland trip. The balancesheet was only issued privately to those intimately connected with the tour and was" supposed to be guarded with the utmost jealousy. The Sydney Referee, however, brought off something of a journalistic scoop by getting hold of a copy of the balancesheet and publishing it'. £213 SPENT IN TIPS.

The Australians’ share of receipts in 189 G was £13,614 lGs 4d, the expenses on the tour £3229 7s od. That alone left over £740 for each man of the team, and the profits made on the exhibition games played in America, New Zealand and Tasmania must have covered the £BO that every member of the side was mulcted in for “personal expenses” on the tour. How tire £3229 7s od expenses of the tour was made up is interesting. Fourteen first-class return tickets, Sydney to London and back, cost £1670 10s. Travelling about from town to town in England meant £327 9s Id. Hotel, ground and other tips swallowed up the. quite considerable item of £213 9s 3d. Umpires’ fees ran away with £ls6,and the, Australian scorer earned £53 11s. Evidently, however, the team met with a great deal of hospitality, for the tour’s lunches and other refreshments only cost £79 16s Bd.

Whether the present team, without such gate-attracting names as Clem Hill, Victor Trumper, Dr H. V. Hordern, Vernon Hansford, and Cotter in it, and with the South Africans as rivals for public patronage, will do so well financially as some of its predecessors remains to be seen. Unless the summer is a very disappointing one, and the many new players in the side unable to rise to the occasion, however, it is probable that each of the Australians will be richer than when he arrived.

NOTES ON THE “TESTS.”

IS THE “BOSIE” DYING?

There are four more triangular test matches to he played this season. The Australians have to meet England twice and the Africans will play their third game against both the other countries. Africa, even in the remote circumstance of winning her two remaining games, cannot do better than tie with either of the other competitors as they stand to-day, and the destination ox the mythical ashes - or if not ashes, any other old mythical substance that chance or a genius mind may invent for the new series—will go to England or to Australia. All interest in the Springboks is dead, and the countries left in are level on ] joints so far. - That is the position in the competition to-day.

There is not a great deal to be said of the contest recently concluded at Lord's. Australia owes its easy win to the Glebe, for the pair of clever bats who made all the nuts in the Australian innings have sustained many such a stand for their club here in Sydney, and it is good to see them get going together at home. Bardsloy back to scoring form is aontiier item regarding which there is much to be thankful for, and it is to be hoped that now he has put up another big innings he will go on and wax fatin runs. For with Macartney, Bardsley, Kelk-way and Jennings doing things witii the bat in the tests their opponents will have to go all the way to win.

The feature of the tour of the South African ill England has been the failure of the “bosk.” And the question arises 'whether or no the twisty little deceiver is going to fall hack into the limbo of other species of trick-bowling that have died natural deaths. It would be interesting to have Hordern in England just now if only to know whether he would succeed where the rest have failed. South Africa depended a great deal upon her googlies, and her googlks left her standing still. Pegler does not bowl them and Nourse can't, and it is these "two who have done best with the ball for their side.

Schwartz, who was the first exponent of the art after B. J. T. Bosanquet, himself, and who, moreover, bowled the “bosie” with immense success on English wickets, has been a dismal failure. It can hardly lie the pitches. They are practically the same, as they always were. It can hardly be the bowler himself. Presumably he bowls just as good a “googly” to-day as he did a few years ago. Faulkner and the others who indulge in the us© of the wrong ’un are in just as had a state of inability to got wickets in the way they got them in Africa.

Is the “bosie” dead, or dying? Has constant use and careful watching on the part, of big cricketers wormed the secret of the success thatused to -follow in its wake with the various bowlers who practised it, and is it about to expire for that reason ? It would certainly seem so. Even English bowlers who used the “googly” last season have been dropping it to a great extent this, and it is possible that in a little while the newfangled ball will have fallen right out of use, and orthodoxy will have returned.

The pity of South Africa’s failure has been that the loss of their bowling power has apparently brought with it an almost equal slump in hatting. Faulkner is not the Faulkner of the Australian tour. Schwarz has been a passenger. Gordon White has done hardly anything.- If, before the next series of t-riangulars arrives, Africa does not dig op some new talent-, it is to be feared that sho will again perform the undesirable feat of becoming the smallest side of the triangle.

AVERAGES OF AUSTRALIANS. BARDSLEY LEADS THE BATSMEN. The averages for all matches up till the end of the previous “Test” to last Monday is as follows: BATTING.

I. N.O. It. II.S. At. Bard si ey ... 31 4 1346 184* 49.88 Macartney 31 1 1433 208 47.76 Webster ... 7 5 70 25 35.00 Ke lie way 24 4 599 114 29.95 .Jennings 20 3 757 83 29.11 Gregory ... 28 2 725 150 25.89 Mayno 24 2 504 85 22.99 Minnett ... 21 3 367 65* 20.38 Matthews 20 3 308 58 18.11 Smith 14 2 211 100 17.58 Whitt, v ... 17 5 173 33 14.83 Emery 17 5 178 33 14.83 Emery ... 16 4 147 37* 12.25 Hazlitt 20 4 127 35* 7.93 Carkeek ... 15 4 73 18 7.03 M.‘Laren ... 9 1 38 21 4.75 * Not out. BOWLING. W. E Av. Macartney 28 389 13.83 Matthews 53 903 17.03 Whitty ... 56 979 17.48 Hazlitt ... 56 3018 18.01 Emery •52 1039 19.93 Kelleway 42 842 20.04 Minnett ... 27 547 20.02 M'Laren ... 17 359 21.11 Smith 1 22 22.00 Mayno 0 35 —