CONSISTENT SCORING AGAINST RAMAGE
By A Staff Reporter
Playing copybook Billiards , Leslie Driffield (England) beat Walter Ramage (Scotland) by 1,712 points to 812 in the second match of the World Amateur Championship at the Great Eastern Hotel on Saturday night .
It would have taken something extraordinary to shake Driffield’s confidence . Not for him the straight rush to the top of the table but the careful engineering of the balls to give him the desired position whether it was at the top or any other section of the table .
Consistency was the keynote of his play and in the form he touched on Saturday it would have taken a superlative effort on anyone’s part to beat him . He was in command all the way .
Certainly the Gods were not with his opponent . Essentially a red ball player , Ramage’s technique is rather like that of Selvaraj on a more polished scale , but luck deserted him several times . As far as the positions were concerned he got the thin end of the wedge and when he failed to score it was not so much a question of what he missed but what he had left .
Already heavily in arrears late in the first half he tried a top pocket in-off which caught one of the jaws and came out of baulk . With the red ball in the middle of the table Driffield got down to what proved to be his highest break of the evening –249 .
In this effort , only about 50 points came from the pot and cannon combination at the top of the table . The rest came mainly in hazards and cannons , the balls being carefully steered all round the table .
In Driffield’s later breaks there were short spells of the nursery cannon and glimpses here and there of “Postman’s knock†but behind all this there was a hand as steady as a rock and a mind thinking far ahead . Steadily he built up scores through designed consolidation .
FIRST CENTURY BREAK
In his third visit to the table . Driffield without much ostentation , recorded the first century break of the evening and from then onwards went strength to strength . Another big break of 123 and his opponent was struggling .
Before Driffield scored his century break , however , Ramage caught the eye with a clever break of 71—clever because he lost the red in baulk , through an unexpected clash against the white and then carried on the losing hazard off the white ball , until a magnificent run through off the red brought him hand ball and the red outside the baulk line .
Apart from his 249 which took him 19 minutes to compile , the winner scored three century breaks in the first session , that of 105 closely following the two already mentioned . At the half-way stage Driffield led 849-312 which do not include the unfinished break of 75 . Ramage in the meantime had registered only two breaks over 50 , those of 66 and 64 .
UNASSAILABLE POSITION
On resumption the pattern of the game had already taken shape . Driffield took his unfinished 75 to 100 , and following up with 98 and 97 was in an unassailable position . Before the end he chalked up two more century breaks , 114 and 175 .
But through all this Ramage stuck to his guns and playing doggedly he compiled breaks of 77 and 93 . Shortly before the end he worked up a lot of enthusiasm with a break of 90 which indicated that he was just about to come into his own but it was not long before time was up .
Driffield had a match average of 42.8 . In the first session he averaged 46.2 for 20 visits and in the second 37.5 .
Breaks over 50 and above are as follows :
Driffield : 108 , 123 , 62 , 105 , 249 , 100 , 98 , 97 , 114 and 175 .
Ramage : 71 , 66 , 64 , 77 , 93 , 90 .
TODAY’S MATCH
C. Hirjee (India) v. A. Yunoos (Burma) --5-30 p.m. and 8-30 p.m.
By A Staff Reporter
It would have taken something extraordinary to shake Driffield’s confidence . Not for him the straight rush to the top of the table but the careful engineering of the balls to give him the desired position whether it was at the top or any other section of the table .
Consistency was the keynote of his play and in the form he touched on Saturday it would have taken a superlative effort on anyone’s part to beat him . He was in command all the way .
Certainly the Gods were not with his opponent . Essentially a red ball player , Ramage’s technique is rather like that of Selvaraj on a more polished scale , but luck deserted him several times . As far as the positions were concerned he got the thin end of the wedge and when he failed to score it was not so much a question of what he missed but what he had left .
Already heavily in arrears late in the first half he tried a top pocket in-off which caught one of the jaws and came out of baulk . With the red ball in the middle of the table Driffield got down to what proved to be his highest break of the evening –249 .
In this effort , only about 50 points came from the pot and cannon combination at the top of the table . The rest came mainly in hazards and cannons , the balls being carefully steered all round the table .
In Driffield’s later breaks there were short spells of the nursery cannon and glimpses here and there of “Postman’s knock†but behind all this there was a hand as steady as a rock and a mind thinking far ahead . Steadily he built up scores through designed consolidation .
FIRST CENTURY BREAK
In his third visit to the table . Driffield without much ostentation , recorded the first century break of the evening and from then onwards went strength to strength . Another big break of 123 and his opponent was struggling .
Before Driffield scored his century break , however , Ramage caught the eye with a clever break of 71—clever because he lost the red in baulk , through an unexpected clash against the white and then carried on the losing hazard off the white ball , until a magnificent run through off the red brought him hand ball and the red outside the baulk line .
Apart from his 249 which took him 19 minutes to compile , the winner scored three century breaks in the first session , that of 105 closely following the two already mentioned . At the half-way stage Driffield led 849-312 which do not include the unfinished break of 75 . Ramage in the meantime had registered only two breaks over 50 , those of 66 and 64 .
UNASSAILABLE POSITION
On resumption the pattern of the game had already taken shape . Driffield took his unfinished 75 to 100 , and following up with 98 and 97 was in an unassailable position . Before the end he chalked up two more century breaks , 114 and 175 .
But through all this Ramage stuck to his guns and playing doggedly he compiled breaks of 77 and 93 . Shortly before the end he worked up a lot of enthusiasm with a break of 90 which indicated that he was just about to come into his own but it was not long before time was up .
Driffield had a match average of 42.8 . In the first session he averaged 46.2 for 20 visits and in the second 37.5 .
Breaks over 50 and above are as follows :
Driffield : 108 , 123 , 62 , 105 , 249 , 100 , 98 , 97 , 114 and 175 .
Ramage : 71 , 66 , 64 , 77 , 93 , 90 .
TODAY’S MATCH
C. Hirjee (India) v. A. Yunoos (Burma) --5-30 p.m. and 8-30 p.m.