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The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, June 1928

[Review of the 1927-1928 Cricket Season]

The 1927-28 Season saw the Club as strong as it has ever been, each of the four teams fielded meeting with a very fair measure of success. Particularly gratifying was the great improvement shown in the Senior Eleven's record. Far from filling bottom place in the championship, as in the previous season, we actually finished third, with 5 wins against 3 losses; the other game (against Institute) being drawn, no result being arrived at on the 1st innings. Two of the losses were sustained at the hands of Hutt and Kilbirnie in the first two games.

Our success was in a very large measure, due to the eleven's popular skipper. R. H. C. MacKenzie, who, besides leading the side with great skill, had a fine season personally, finishing at the head of the batting averages with the splendid figures of 559 runs made in 8 complete innings; his average, 69.87, being second only to that of C. S. Dempster, New Zealand's finished batsman. To cap his brilliant performances, MacKenzie dismissed no fewer than 20 men behind the sticks—13 caught and 7 stumped; truly a wonderful record.

E. McLeod, who joined up with us this year proved a tower of strength, figuring prominently in bothbatting and bowling.

R. E. Tripe was just getting into his stride when a business appointment called him away to Auckland. His batting was much sounder than in the previous season.

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W. Vietmeyer met with little success at the bowling crease, but made up for this shortcoming by filling fourth place in the batting averages.

Our leading all-rounder of last season, A. M. Rollings, had a lean time of it, in spite of a couple of centuries.

T. Nelson and J. C. Greig, bore the brunt of the attack, the former doing particularly well at the commencement of the season; the latter finishing off with a splendid burst, his 6 for 33 against Thorndon, being a magnificent effort. Our opponents were so completely at sea to him that on a perfect wicket they failed to reach our total of 201, after having 85 on the Board for no wickets!

E, T. Leys was another player who experienced a poor season. He made a couple of scores of 77, but was very inconsistent.

H. W. Osborn, who was so successful as an opening batsman last year, fell right away, and except for one splendid unfinished knock for 70, he failed to get going at all.

W. Dormer, our leading junior batsman of the previous year, batted well throughout the season and should prove one of the team's chief run getters.

H. C Bailey, who promised to be another "Stonewall'1 Jackson, and as such, an invaluable opening batsman, joined us early in the season and played well on several occasions, without, however, striking his true form.

Lastly, we have to congratulate A. C. Tripe on his quick recovery from an operation, which kept him on the bank till more than half way through the season. We sincerely hope that next year he may produce the form shown by him in the Auckland match, where he clean bowled five of our opponents for 10 runs apiece, and followed up with a dashing batting display.

Reviewing the team as a whole, we find that we have eleven men capable of knocking up at least fifty apiece, but what of the bowling? We sadly need a match-winning bowler, no fewer than 9 of the team trundle—more or less—but we haven't a bowler who can be relied on to gather in four or five wickets an innings! The fielding was first-rate, as it should be; E. McLeod and H. C Bailey, being our "stars" in this department. However, we enjoyed our season and are looking forward confidently to an even more successful one in 1928-29.

Details of the matches and the averages will appear in the next issue of The Spike.