Double Headers

88 sponsored by the Anglo-South African financier Solomon (Solly) Joel, and games against provincial sides were played under the name of ‘S.B.Joel’s XI’. Five representative matches were also played against more or less the full South African Test side, and at the time “there was considerable debate on the subject of the ‘Test matches’ which were to be played on the tour. In the end it was generally agreed that these could not be official ‘Tests’ since England could not have a representative eleven in two countries at the same time”. 80 An interesting contrast with the outcome of a similar debate about matches five seasons later, but let that pass. Of interest for the present work is that, if the representative matches had been accepted as Test matches, it would have created a further instance of simultaneous Tests by the same country, since matches between England and Australia, and between England and South Africa, would have been in progress simultaneously on 23-24-26 December (at Sydney and Johannesburg respectively), on 1-2-3-5 January (at Melbourne and Durban), and on 16 January (at Adelaide and Cape Town). But as it was, the side in South Africa kept its title of ‘S.B.Joel’s XI’ for these games too, so the double-header didn’t happen. Ten of the eleven other first-class matches on Joel’s tour had at least one playing day that coincided with a day when the English tourists in Australia, as ‘MCC’, were also playing a first-class match. 80 Peter Wynne-Thomas: The complete history of cricket tours at home and abroad , Hamlyn, 1989 Other instances involving British teams