Clem Hill's Reminiscences

Unlike Trumper, he was not a born cricketer; he made himself one. Out for form he was next door to useless with the bat, but he did not stint himself in the slightest in the matter of training and exercise and practice when he was getting ready for a tour or a season. He made himself a bowler, and he practically forced himself to be a batsman. As a captain he would not stoop to look for a point against an opponent. He was always annoyed with any member of the side who appealed to the umpire without justification. I have heard him rebuke some of the Australians for making an unnecessary appeal. 24 8 Captain’s trousers dumped in sea: team conspiracy against Joe Darling A conspiracy against their captain. The members of the Australian eleven of 1902 were guilty of that offence. They thought it was time that he got rid of a pair of trousers he had been wearing for six years, so they conspired together to dump them in the sea. And they succeeded. It would be thirty years before Joe Darling would learn of the fate of those trousers. Clem Hill brings the conspiracy to light in his reflections on Darling, a resolute fighter, who when he was in the mood to force the pace, a hurricane. Hill recalls one big hit that Darling made which went out of Adelaide Oval and smashed the glassware of an ice cream vendor under a tree in the adjoining park. It is appropriate here, now that I am at the third Test in Adelaide in 1898, to write of Joe Darling, because his 178 out of a total of 573 in this game was the second best innings I saw him play. He made many centuries in first-class cricket, but his best was 160 in Sydney in the last Test of this season. When the teams met in Adelaide for the third Test, the tally was one all. Australia won by an innings and 13 runs. For the second time in this series England had to follow on. Darling and I were the two left-handers in the team. We attended Prince Alfred College, and he held the record – 252 – in collegiate matches until I passed it with 360. 25 For some years Darling did not play big cricket. His first Test was in Sydney in 1894. He did not score, and for two days while the Australians were making 586 a large 0 opposite his name hit him in the eye every time he looked at the scoreboard. Once he was putting on his pads in a Test in Melbourne Charlie Bannerman expressed the opinion that Darling was right out of form, and that Donnan should have been in his place. Donnan replied, ‘You don’t know him, Charlie; he is as steady as a rock, always gives himself a chance.’ That was Darling. He was a tremendous fighter. Sometimes he would stonewall where there was no necessity to do so. At other times in the same circumstances he would snap his jaw and go for the bowling with hits as powerful as a horse’s kick. His cover shots were good and he was strong on the off side. Anything Stoddart’s Tour of Australia 37 24 Noble would obviously have been out of place in the modern era. 25 The annual game against St Peter’s College was played on the Adelaide Oval at this time.