Clem Hill's Reminiscences

Chapter Eight Warner’s Tour of Australia, 1903-04 The Englishmen were the first team selected and managed by the Marylebone Cricket Club: they won the rubber 3-2 after four consecutive series defeats. England won the first match in Sydney on the back of Reggie Foster’s monumental 287 and thereafter maintained the advantage. Trumper kept his status as the world’s leading batsman with 574 runs at 63.77 and Noble was the best all-rounder on either side. Until the introduction of fast bowler Albert ‘Tibby’ Cotter in the last two games, however, the Australian attack lacked the variety and guile of Rhodes, Bosanquet, Arnold, Braund and Hirst. 17 Captains should toss each other: 46 only way Darling could win The loss of the toss, Hill suggests, cost Australia the Ashes in the 1903-04 Test series. The wickets were damaged by rain after the opening day in three matches. England by winning the toss in two of those three Tests had the game won by the end of the first day. Of the other two games, England won one. Warner, the English captain, because of his success with the coin, became known as ‘Lucky’ Warner. In 1905 in England, Darling never won the toss in a Test; in 1909 Noble never lost it. When Warner’s team of 1903-04 was preparing to return to England from Australia a woman sent the captain an urn bearing the inscription ‘The Ashes of Australian cricket won by Capt Warner, assisted by Capt Weather.’ The weather certainly favoured England. It was bad for the second Test in Melbourne, the fourth in Sydney, and the fifth in Melbourne. On the opening days of those fixtures, there was no rain, the wickets were good, and the side which batted first piled up a score against which its opponents had no chance on the rain-affected wickets which followed. Warner won the toss in the second and fourth, and the games went to England. Australia was successful with the coin in the fifth, and won. Because Warner called correctly, or the opposing captain did not, in those two Tests, and had first use of the wicket, he came to be known as ‘Lucky Warner’. There was no rain to damage the wicket for the third. Australia won the toss and the game by 216 runs. Australia also won the toss in Sydney for the first but was beaten by five wickets. 72 46 The verb ‘toss’ was an innocent term when used as a headline for Hill’s article. It has a vulgar connotation in England in modern times.