ICC Intercontinental Cup and Shield

immediately after arrival in New York from their Atlantic crossing from England. They lost the toss and without sleep and still feeling the effects of their sea journey, dropped eight catches and bowled appallingly as Philadelphia progressed to their highest-ever first-class score of 525. In England the Philadelphians more than held their own against the county sides, many of whose players found Bart King, arguably the greatest Associate player of all time, a challenge. With his inswing bowling, he took 42% of his team’s wickets in the matches in which he played at a strike rate of 23.24. In 1908 he headed the English bowling averages with 87 wickets at an average of 11.03. When the Gentlemen of Ireland toured North America in 1909, their two matches against Philadelphia were rated first-class and in the first of these King took ten for 54 in the first innings and four for 38 in the second, the latter including a hat-trick. King is the only Associate bowler to take ten wickets in an innings in a first-class match and the only one to perform a hat-trick in first-class cricket outside of the Intercontinental Cup. Philadelphia’s cricket peaked with the 1903 English tour after which the established players gradually retired and their replacements proved less able. Cricket in the United States suffered because little attempt was made to develop it as a mass sport and in Philadelphia it relied heavily on a well-established leisured class with the time and money to participate in tournaments and undertake overseas tours. Changing economic conditions meant that fewer people could maintain the life-style that underpinned Philadelphian cricket and standards began to decline during the 1910s. Thereafter cricket struggled for survival until being revived in the 1950s and 1960s by immigrants from the Caribbean and the Indian sub-continent. First-class status, however, ended in 1913. The next Associate country to engage in first-class cricket was Fiji. They played six such matches against provincial sides on their tour of New Zealand in 1895, winning the two against the weaker opposition of Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki, teams that no longer have first-class status. Fijian cricket at this time was of a good standard, benefiting from the organisational and coaching skills of John Udal who came to Fiji in 1890 as Attorney General. The team to New Zealand comprised eight Europeans and six Fijians. They owed a great deal to Ratu Wilikonisoni Tuivanuavou whose right-arm fast bowling accounted for 37 wickets in the first-class games at an average of 10.57. With the departure of Udal to become Chief Justice of Antigua in 1899, the standard of Fijian cricket gradually declined until a revival in the 1940s following the arrival of Philip Snow as an Administrator within the British Colonial Service. Formerly the captain of Leicestershire’s Second Eleven, he established an administrative structure for cricket and, under his guidance and enthusiasm, standards improved. He organised a tour of New Zealand in 1948 during which the Fijians won two of their five matches against provincial sides. Their high standard of play somewhat surprised the New Zealanders and the spectators were enthralled by the stroke-making of Ilikena Bula, who hit one century and two fifties in the first-class games, and the fast bowling of Viliame Mataika and Etuate Cakobau. The Fijians returned to New Zealand in 1954 on a tour in which the four games against the provinces were granted first-class status in advance. Fiji won only one and, although of a good standard, the team was slightly weaker than that of 1948. Bula scored another century but the bowling relied on the spin of Maurice Fenn rather than penetrating pace. Given the respective merits of the 1948 and 1954 sides, the decision, in 1987, to accord first-class status to the five matches on the 1948 tour retrospectively was fair. With the departure of Philip Snow from Fiji, interest in cricket declined in favour of rugby union and rugby league. Three more tours of New Zealand were made in the 1960s and 1970s but the country was no longer considered first-class. Since then, standards have declined even further. Although Dublin University’s matches against the MCC and Leicestershire in 1895 are rated first-class, these cannot be considered as internationals. Ireland’s first-class cricket began with four matches on a tour of England in 1902, two of which were won. Their next first-class matches were in 1907 against Yorkshire at Bray and the South Africans at Dublin, the first ones to be played at home. Both resulted in heavy defeats. Matches between Ireland and Scotland began in 1888 but it was not until the two met at Perth in 1909 that they were recognised as first-class. The contest quickly developed into an annual fixture which continued, with breaks during the two World Wars, until 2000, by which time the large number of one-day fixtures 3 Introduction