Clem Hill's Reminiscences

87 Chapter Eleven The Years 1909 to 1912 Noble’s Tour of England, 1909 Hill left no record in his account of why he failed to make a fifth English tour in 1909. This is disappointing because he selected the team, along with Frank Iredale and Peter McAlister. The main reasons for making himself unavailable were, apparently, the decline of player power and dissatisfaction with the financial terms offered by the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket. The Board assumed control for the first time, marking a political change in Australian cricket which lasted until 1977. South African Tour of Australia, 1910-11 A surprising omission from the Hill chronicle is the season which saw him lead Australia as Test captain for the first time. Percy Sherwell’s South African team had defeated England 3-2 the previous summer but the googly based attack felt the full weight of Australian bats. The powerful Australian batting and incisive opening attack of Bill Whitty (37 wickets at 17.08) and Cotter plus the discovery of its own googly merchant, ‘Ranji’ Hordern, who captured 14 wickets in the last two Tests, enabled the home side to win comfortably 4-1. Aubrey Faulkner’s great efforts of scoring 732 runs at 73.20 found occasional support from ‘Billy’ Zulch, ‘Dave’ Nourse and ‘Tip’ Snooke but Reggie Schwarz was a lone hand with the ball. Warner’s Tour of Australia, 1911-12 Hill captained Australia in his only Ashes series, but after a win in the first match, lost the remaining four games. As on the previous tour, England lost its captain with illness early. In this case Warner played just the first tour match, scoring 151, and thereafter the side was under the leadership of Johnny Douglas. Disagreements with the Board of Control undercut the performances of Australia’s leading players, although the outstanding opening bowling combination of Sydney Barnes and Frank Foster, with 66 wickets between them, combined with the magnificent batting of Jack Hobbs (662 runs at 82.75) gave England the edge. Australia’s attack lacked bite and only Hordern (32 wickets at 24.37) made consistent inroads into the tourists batting. 20 Five wickets for 6 before lunch: deadly bowling in Tests Spectators have seldom seen more deadly bowling in a Test match than that of Barnes in Melbourne at the end of 1911. In atmospheric conditions that enabled him to swing from the leg and break from the off, the full width of the wicket, he captured five wickets for six runs before lunch. Hill thought that Barnes and Foster were the most effective English bowling combination he played against. He referred to the excellent bowling of Hordern and put him in