Clem Hill's Reminiscences

his side might have the time to force a win. This completed Hill’s college career by which time the boy was father to the man. In 1892-93, before he had left college, Hill had already represented North Adelaide in senior club cricket, scoring 45 on debut, and had been chosen to represent South Australia as a wicket-keeper batsman. In this game, on the Adelaide Oval, only a few days past his sixteenth birthday, he made a duck against Western Australia batting at number six in the first innings, and a brief nought not out as an opener in the second. His real start, however, came eighteen months later, against Andrew Stoddart’s English team in November 1894, when he replaced Jack Noel, who had a hand injury, in the South Australian side. He made 20 in such good style that his future was assured. From then until his first ‘retirement’ at the age of 37 in 1914, he never missed a first-class game on the oval. He also never missed a Test match in Australia and made four English tours. Hill was identified with many of Test cricket’s greatest contests and in March 1895 caused a sensation by scoring 150 not out and 56 against Stoddart’s team in the closing match of the tour. Hill showed in this match that he had big match temperament, so that the Englishmen were in raptures with the batting of the 18-year-old who played the superb fast bowler Tom Richardson with supreme confidence. In Hill’s second season as a first-class player, in 1895-96, an Australian team was chosen to go to England and it was assumed that he would be in the party of thirteen. However, a couple of failures against New South Wales turned the selectors against him and he was omitted. Then he made a magnificent 206 not out against the same opponents and forced his way back in. Now nineteen, Hill had a rough start to his Test career with scores of 1 and 5 at Lord’s, 9 and 14 at Manchester, and 1 and 0 at the The Oval, or a total of 30 runs at an average of 5.00. Overall, however, his tour performance was encouraging. With 1,196 runs at 27.81 he finished third behind Syd Gregory and Joe Darling in the averages and ahead of Frank Iredale, skipper Harry Trott, George Giffen and Harry Donnan. His final selection was justified by him becoming at that time the youngest player to compile 1,000 runs in an English season. After the English tour, the 1896 Australians played six matches in the United States. Hill played in all three first-class games but fared poorly, especially against the great Philadelphian swing bowler Barton King who dismissed him cheaply three times. The 1896-97 season saw Hill in moderate form in four Sheffield Shield games and in brilliant touch in Adelaide club fixtures where he began to show evidence of becoming a more complete all-round batsman. In the 1897-98 season the 20-year-old Hill established himself as a batsman of the highest class. His tally of 1,196 runs at 66.44 not only included five centuries, but was exactly double his career average to that time. He began with a glorious, chanceless 200 against the English tourists in his opening match and continued to plunder their attack in the Tests that followed. An aggressive 96 in the second innings of the First Test was his first major Test innings. It was followed by a subdued 58 in Melbourne, a hard-hitting 81 in Adelaide and his greatest Test innings of 188 in the Fourth Test in Melbourne. In that knock Australia had lost 6 wickets for 57 when he and Hugh Trumble became Introducing Clem Hill 7