Cricket 1884

jolt 17. i88i. CRICKET; A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. 261 T H E F U T U R E OF A U S T R A L IA N CR ICK ET . From “ The Melbourne Argus.” B y a n O b s e r v e r . No doubt it may be considered premature —with the fourth Australian Eleven yet to prove the value of many things said for and ag linst them—to refer to the matter of a fifth Australian team for England. Yet, noting the occasional signs of the times as far as they affect the popular pastime of Australia, it would seem, after all, that there is some reason for taking time so very much by the forelock. The Hon. Ivo Bligh, with many other shrewd judges of the game, has re­ marked the small numbers of first-class cricketers in Australia from whom the elevens that visited England have been chosen, and his natural inference is that when the places of such men as Murdoch and Spofforth come to be filled the high standard of excellence will not be maintained. In coming to this conclusion the English captain, no doubt, argued by the light of past experience, and concluded that for years to come the members of the present team, or the majority of them, would monopolise the places in future Austra lian elevens. No doubt they will have the very best claim to the position, viz., that of ability; for with such a splendid training 20 per cent, of the junior cricketers of the colony would ere this have become first-class cricketers. Anyone who takes the trouble to think over the matter must, however, come to the conclusion that the longer the present members of the tetm continue to enforce their rights in this way tbe more marked will be the realisation of the Hon. Ivo Bligh’s pro­ phecy when they do finally retire. When Murdoch and his men leave the field—pro­ bably in a body as far es international cricket is concerned—the cause of their retirement is less likely to be attributed to a falling off in individual skill than in the more substantial matter of finance. It is a question of some interest—and likely to be solved during the present tour—whether the patrons of cricket hi England will not tire, as they have done in Australia, of going year after year to see the same eleven play together, granting even that it is the very best eleven Australia can send into the cricket field. Although the interest taken in the career of the present team, from the national point of view, is not less marked than with former elevens, the significant fact that, a miserable patronage was given to- their matches in the leading cities of Australia cannot be overlooked. A few hundred pain­ fully silent spectators took the place of the thousands who formerly cheered themselves hoarse in demonstrative approval of the play. It was not because the level of excellence had fallen that the Victorian public, even at holiday times, declined to attend the matches, but because, having seen these same men play together year after year as Australian elevens, they wanted something fresh. This peeling seems to be growing in England also, or the balance sheet of the last eleven ^howed that they made very little money sduiing the English portion of their tour, although the programme of matches was much superior to that of the two previously arranged, and before the eleven left these shores their belief was that there was a lot of money in it. The bulk of the profits was realised after their return to Australia, and when a double attraction was offered in the resence of an English team, only two mein- ers of which, it is significant to note, had previously set foot in Australia. Whether in this case the English Eleven or the Australians was the greater draw can only be settled by inference, when the pre­ sent eleven return to Australia and meet the team of English professionals now being or­ ganised for an Australian tour next season. This team, according to latest reports, will be composed very largely of players well known to the colonies, and as a consequence very little interest is being taken in the move­ ment. Considering all the conditions under which these Australian cricketing trips are undertaken, it seems more than probable that some time in the future one of them will return to our shores in pretty much tbe same condition —financially—as they left it, and a general resignation of the responsibilities of an inter-national cricketer will follow. Now, the Hon. Ivo Bligh and his men w«re very popular in Australia. Yet the Melbourne Club would not care to accept the risk of bringing the same men here a second time on the strength of the patronage ac­ corded to the first venture. In these days, when a love for variety is a ruling trait in mankind, even the foremost adherents of the game have a natural yearning for new. blood, and there are a good many who think that sufficient talent can be found in England to afford that gratification pretty frequently, while here in Australia also there is sufficient undeveloped merit to allow of our occasionally returning the compliment. The announcement that Messrs. Shaw, Shrews­ bury, Lillywhite, Ulyett,Bates, Pilling, Peate, Barlow, and Barnes may visit us next year as a professional team has scarcely any interest for Australians. They are all good men with­ out doubt, and many of them hold the same unchallenged position in England, as regards merit, that the Australians do here. Yet, in the face of all this, colonial interest in the coming team is confined almost solely to sur­ mises about the few new men who may be chosen for it. A great change has taken place in Victorian public feeling with regard to the game since the cricketing triumvirate, Shaw, Shrewsbury, and Lillywhite, brought their last professional team to Australia, and if they are properly informed by their agents in this country we shall most likely see a radical change in the constitution of the team before it leaves England. By our own feelings in sucji matters we can fairly estimate those of the English cricketing public also, and may not be far wrong in coming to the con­ clusion that before long a team as novel to Englishmen as their last eleven was to us will have to be sent from these shores. The question is whether it would not be advisable to anticipate that change, so that Australian power in the cricket field may be strengthened rather than decreased. The remedy is to decide that the next eleven to visit England from Australia shall be composed as nearly as possible of entirely new blood. Four elevens supposed to con­ tain the best talent available nave now left our shores. Let the next then, be a second eleven, if it must be so, but a new one as far as the men who compose it are concerned. It has been said that there is at present no cricketer in Australia—with the exception of a couple who could not go to England—fit to take the thirteenth place in the team just about to commence its English campaign. It would have been much better, however, had the promoters of the Australian Eleven taken the straightforward course of saying that they understood their own business thoroughly, and did not want a thirteenth man, rather than have sought refuge in a statement that was nothing else than a libel on so many cricketers in Australia. Now, it would be quite an unfair comparison to place the per­ formances of the several players who are considered by pretty nearly everyone except those autocratic Australians to have some claim to a place in a representative team alongside the latfr records of the Australians themselves Nearly all the latter have had the advantage of three seasons’ valuable ex­ perience both in England and Australia, and it would be strange indeed if they had not profited by it. But it is a perfectly legitimate comparison to place the averages of some of the men who remain in Australia alongside those of the best of the Australians before they took their first trip to England, and if this is done it will be found that results are in favour of the cricketers of to-day. As the Australians were a distinct success on their first visit to England, why should not a team chosen from players with as good, and in many cases better records, be equally suc­ cessful. Now and again, when new men have made their first mark in Australia, we have heard it said that their style was not suitable to English wickets, but the objection has been worn thread-bare, and has now no point. If it were realty the case it is only the more reason why promising men, with a poor style, should have the benefit of a season on English wickets. Mr. T. U. Groube, for example, found that the style which brought him so many centuries in Australia was totally ineffective on English turf, and he promptly set to work to remedy that defect, with the result that he is now one of the best- batsmen in Australia, and few probably would do better on English wickets. Groube as an exception, however, and the very best proof that the majority of the players now in Australia would not suffer on account of their style is the convincing one that men with very much the same style have succeeded iD England. To show what a vast improvement was made in the batting of the leading players in the present team by their experience on either side of the world, it is only necessary to quote their batting averages for their first and last colonial tours. Starting at the top of the tree, we find that Murdoch had for his opening tour a batting average of 12*14 runs per innings, while, as the result of his latest trip through the colonies, he has an average of 59*5 per innings. These figures are in no degree exceptional, and give a fair indication of the improvement made by the Australian Captain. Bannerman in his opening essay in the colonies had an average of 14'10, while his latest figures are 82 2 per innings. G. Bonnor played through Australia for an average of 11*13, and when he left Adelaide a few weeks ago these figures had improved to 33*1 runs per innings. Last amongst the four leading batsmen of the team comes M’Donnell, who commenced with an average of 14 9 runs per innings, and finished with the improved re­ cord of 30*5. As some proof that a series of tours is net absolutely necessary to develope merit, we have the fact that during the second tour of the colonies made by the first Australian team after its return from Eng­ land, Murdoch’s figures improved from the 12*14 already quoted to 30 runs per innings, and other batsmen showed the effects of the trip in a less marked degree. The last intercolonial match at Adelaide, in which the Victorian second eleven, as it may be called, gained such a remarkable vic­ tory, showed that as far as this colony is con­ cerned we are not dependent on a few players to uphold our credit. That match created a keener interest here than the one played in Sydney a few days before it, and the result will be rememberedwhen a half-score of more pretentious intercolonial contests are forgot­ ten. The explanation is that many of the men taking part in it were novices, while others claimed but a limited experience in first-rate cricket, and every one was anxious to see how they would pass through the ordeal. It would be very much the same with an Aus­ tralian Eleven organised on these lines, for we would probably find that public interest in the venture was not a degree less pro­ nounced than if the Eleven was a represent­ ative one, with a mission to uphold the sup­ remacy of colonial cricket against all comers. One result of the undertaking at any rate would probably be, that on the return of the team from England the majority of the players could claim a place in the best eleven of Australia. With the occasional repetition of the project, it could never again be said that Australia had one team of cricketers and one only, and for a few years after the first experiment we should find little difficulty in sending capable elevens to represent U3 in England. Looking down the list of Aus­ tralian cricketers, the names of a good many players who have claim for inclusion iu such