Cricket 1911

A pbll 15 , IP 11. CR ICKET : A W EEK LY RECORD OF THE GAME. 50 these, only the Australian and West Indian matches will have appeared in any London daily. Yet the victory of Canterbury over Auckland in the Plunket Shield competi­ tion and the visit of the Philadelphian team to the lonely Bermudas—international cricket on a small scale, this— are surely worthy of due chronicle and record. W h il e K e n t holds the English County Championship the province of Canterbury has proved its right to the parallel distinction in New Zealand, wresting the Plunket Shield from Auckland. The story of the match is told in the descriptive account which precedes it, so that there is little need to say much here. But the game was certainly one of the best ever played in the beautiful islands for which, in his “ Song of the Cities ” in “ A Song of the English,” Mr. Kipling makes Auckland spokesman with— Last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart— On us, on us the unswerving season smiles, Who wonder ’mid our fern why men depart To seek the Happy Isles ! C r ic k e t in Maoriland is very much better than most people in England imagine. It has not yet, one may admit, reached the standard of Australian cricket. But there are people who would tell us that our own cricket falls below that standard ; and it has lately been proved conclusively that South Africa has not quite attained to it. Auckland, Canterbury, Hawke’s Bay, Otago and Wellington are the five senior provinces. Of them, the last three are scarcely up to the strength of the first two just now. For years Otago’s greatest assets were a deadly pair of bowlers, Alexander Downes and Arthur Hadfield Fisher. But the years passed, and Downes and Fisher have reached the veteran stage now. So has Sydney Callaway, who played in Test matches for Australia nineteen years ago, and, after playing for a decade or so for Canterbury, has more recently turned out for Auckland. And H. G. Siede- berg, the side’s best batsman, is not exactly a colt. A f e w seasons ago Wellington, with Kenneth Tucker, Arnold Butler Williams, Joseph Mahoney and J. P. Black- lock in good form, had quite a strong side. To-day, though the Victorian, J. V.. Saunders, who came to England with the Australian team of 1902, has strengthened their bowling, they are scarcely up to their old form. H a w k e ’ s B a y , with its little chief town of Napier, far smaller than Auckland, Christchurch,Wellington or Dunedin, has never been quite on a level with the other four, in spite of the good coaching work done by Albert Trott and John Board ; but the province is too strong for the rest, and naturally comes in with the seniors. The most outstand­ ing player it has ever had was Hugh B. Lusk, elder brother of Harold B. Lusk, who made a century in the latest Plunket Shield match. For quite a considerable period Hugh Lusk was one of the best batsmen, if not the very best batsman, in New Zealand. There was a third brother, Norman B ., who has dropped out of representative cricket, so Albert Relf told the writer, only on account of his residence up- country. He also was a class man. All the Lusks were Auckland men to begin with. T h e smaller provinces play—though in general as associations, and not as provinces—for the Lord Hawke Cup, the generous gift of the ex-captain of Yorkshire, first competed for this season. Provinces employing professional coaches are barred from this, a rule which leaves Southland, Westland, Nelson and Marlborough in the South Island, Taranaki in the North, and the various separate associations which exist in the more important provinces, to fight out the issue. But only Southland entered as a province. Taranaki split itself into two, North and South, and Nelson, Westland and Marlborough did not enter at all. South Canterbury fell before Southland ; and Rangitikei (an association in Wellington province) came through the Northern ties triumphantly. Southland and Rangitikei were to meet on neutral ground (probably at Christchurch) in February to play the final. N e x t season there will probably be many more com­ petitors. The ties are played on the knock-out principle, so that the weaker sides would have only one or two matches each. To anyone unacquainted with the politics of New Zealand cricket, so to speak, the medley of provinces and associations is rather puzzling ; but it is doubtless wise not to limit the competition to provincial teams. South­ land, by the way, has hitherto ranked as senior rather than junior, playing an annual match with Otago, and once meeting an Australian side (the Melbourne Club’s team of 1905-6) on even terms. Warwick Armstrong made 335 in that match. F o b so small a community, Bermuda seems to be par­ ticularly strong at the game. As will be seen, the last Philadelphia team succumbed in all three matches, though it included such good men as Percy Clark, F . S. White, Capt. J. J. MacDonogh, P. N. LeRoy, H. C. Thayer and F . A. Greene. All of these except MacDonogh have repre­ sented the Quaker City in English tours. A m o n g the outstanding Bermudian players are the brothers Conyers, J.R. and Gerald, T. St. G. Gilbert, and Capt. H. S. Poyntz of Somerset fame. Apart from at least one earlier tour, Philadelphian teams have visited the islands four times in the last five years. In 1907 Hordern and J. B. King were included ; but T. St. G. Gilbert took all ten wickets of the visitors at a cost of only 17 runs in the last innings of the game between them and All Bermuda, and the home side won by 47 runs. P h il a d e l p h ia , again with Hordern’s help—he took 13 wickets for 62—won a small-scoring match by 8 wickets in 1908 ; but in 1909, though Hordern again played—and made the highest score of 31 not out in the first innings— All Bermuda won by 9 wickets, G. C. Conyers having 13 wickets for 70, and making 38, the highest score for his side in the match. I n 1906 a Bermudian team visited the States, and played seven matches, winning only one, however. J. R. Conyers scored 464 with an average of over 42, making 108 against the Philadelphia C.C. B. J. Kortlang aggre­ gated 344 and averaged 38, and H. J. Tucker 302 with an average of 27, and Gilbert 229 with nearly 21. But Gilbert’s bowling proved unsuccessful, O. Darrell and J. R. Conyers doing the best with the ball. K o k t l a n g ’ s name looks familiar, no doubt. The same man who has lately been playing for Victoria ? Oh, yes, and by good right, for he was born at Prahran which, as everyone knows, or should know, is a suburb of Mel­ bourne. But B. J. K. has been a rover. Here, from the Sporting Life of May 10, 1910, is a brief chronicle of some of his activities, though one suspects some exaggera­ tion in the first sentence.