Clem Hill's Reminiscences

There were some truly fine bowling performances in this game. Noble, off 7.4 overs, took 7 wickets for 17 in England’s first innings. In their second innings he dismissed 6 for 60, and Trumble captured 4 for 49, including the hat trick, his victims being Gunn, Barnes and Jones. Barnes took 6 for 42 and 7 for 121. Australia won that match by 229 runs. We also won three more, England being credited with the first only. We, I think, owed much of our success to our will to win. There was always somebody who came along to score. Even the last wicket in the second of the Tests in Melbourne put on 120, the batsmen Armstrong and Duff, being two colts who had never played in a Test. And our bowlers – Noble, Trumble, Saunders and Howell were splendid. Duff never looked back. What a great start he and Trumper gave to Australia match after match, and year after year! A batsman could always rely upon him to run two if that was at all possible, whereas with others a single was sufficient. In this respect Trumper found him invaluable. Often, as the pair left the dressing room, Duff would call out to us, ‘Well, good-bye, Victor is taking me for a little run about again.’ But he had his turn in a small match. He insisted upon taking strike, and much to his enjoyment and our merriment took control and had Trumper running to him instead of vice versa. Dust storm drives players in In the third match of this series, which was played at Adelaide, a dust storm saved Australia from probable defeat. England began with 388, and we replied with 321. On the afternoon of the third day the visitors had 204 on the board for the loss of five wickets. Two of themwere well set and looked like making a big score. Then the storm arrived, and players and umpires raced for the pavilion. We could not see ten yards in front of us. There was no further play that day, due to the bad light after the storm. During the night rain fell, and it had the effect of binding the wicket which had been showing signs of wear. The Englishmen carried their score to 247, thus giving us 314 to make to win. We compiled these with the loss of six wickets, which was a creditable performance as the pitch was anything but good. It must be admitted that England was severely handicapped by the absence of Barnes who had injured his knee after bowling seven overs in the first innings, and did not play in the subsequent tests. While on the subject of dust storms there is a story told of a factory manager in Sheffield who went along to a group of employees and said, ‘Stoke up lads, Australians be battin’.’ There was certainly a thick haze around the ground that day, whereas when the home team was batting the atmospheric conditions could not have been better. It was in this 1902 series of Tests in Australia that I made 99, 98 and 97 in succession. A.O. Jones, captain of the English eleven, said jocularly that, ‘I dropped my bundle’ when I was near the century. How untrue this was will be gathered from the circumstances surrounding my dismissals. In the first of them I was in with Duff. He and I had not been partners before, and did not know MacLaren’s Tour of Australia 57