Cricket 1892

490 CRICKET: A WEEKLY RECORD OP THE GAME. DEO. 9, 1892 comprising as it did more than a score of matches, was also of great value as practice for the players. And now let us, before beginning to chronicle the history of the tour, take aglance at the personnel of the team which Mr. Conway had drawn together, after some dis­ appointments and much anxiety. It consisted of six New South Wales players, five Victorians, and one representa­ tive of Tasmania. The Tasmanian was G. H. Bailey, a good plucky batsman and smart field, of whose doings prior to or since 1878 we have been able to obtain no reliable in­ formation. Victoria was represented by T. Horan, F. E. Allan, J. M. Blackham, H. F. Boyle and W. Midwinter. The last-named was only an Australian by adoption, having been born at Cirencester, in Gloucestershire. He had been in England during 1877, and did not join the team until it landed at Liverpool. A thorough­ ly good steady bat, with hitting powers of which he chose not to make as much use as he might well have done, and a useful bowler, Midwinter was looked upon as likely to be one of the mainstays of the team. Doubtless he would have been so, but for the fact that he was lost to it after the first few matches, owing to a prior engagement to play for Gloucestershire. He had his pads on to go in during the match v. Middlesex at Lord’s, when W. G. Grace swooped down upon him, and carried him off in a cab to the Oval, where Surrey and Gloucestershire “were meeting. Of the other four, Allan was, perhaps, looked upon as the greatest player. He had been dubbed “ the bowler of a century 91; but he was far from sustaining his home reputa­ tion here, and English batsmen never found much to fear in him. Boyle proved far more useful; and, unlike Allan, he did even better in England than he had ever done in big matches in Australia, though more than one notable performance had been put to his credit there. Blackham and Horan, though both quite young men, had already proved themselves capable exponents of the game; but neither of them had as yet done anything to approach the great deeds which were after­ wards to make their names “ familiar in our mouths as household words.” Blackham was a cricket protegee of Mr. Conway’s, who had recognised his ability both before and behind the sticks when other judges had quite failed to see it. The New South Wales contingent com­ prised D. W. Gregory, W. L. Murdoch, F. R. Spofforth, T. W. Garrett and Charles and Alec Bannerman. It would scarcely be well, however, to attempt to judge of the actual value of these men at that time by the deeds which afterwards made chem famous. In 1878 Charles Bannermail was undoubtedly the premier batsman of Australia; and the general opinion of Gregory’s merit is shown by the fact that he was chosen to captiin the team. But the other four were all young men, and were brought rather on the strength of the promise they had shown than on account of any very great things that they had already accomplished. When the team set sail for England Alec Bannerman had just completed his nineteenth year; and none of the other three had turned three-and- twenty. What they did for their side the averages at the end of this chapter will show; but we may mention that only Spofforth played in a style worthy of his after deeds. James Lillywhite was the English agent of the team; and he got together for them a card of about forty matches. Roughly speak­ ing, half of these were eleven-a side contests, and half against local eighteens and twenty-twos. To these matches against odds no real importance attaches. They can scarcely be considered as more than mere exhibition games; and we shall not—except in one or two special cases—make any par­ ticular mention of them, reserving our com­ ments for the more important fixtures. The team landed at Liverpool on the 13th of May, and reached Nottingham on the following day. Their first match was to be played there on the 20th, and the intervening days were spent in hard practice at the nets. Cricketing England took their coming very apathetically. No real public interest seemed to be aroused by it. Nevertheless several good judges who saw them at practice pre­ dicted that they would have a successful toDr. They began badly, however, Notts beating them by an innings and 14 runs. The only large score made on either side was Selby’s 66; but Midwinter and Garrett for the Australians, and Fred Wyld for Notts, also batted fairly well. Shaw’s bowling average was a notable one, 11 wickets for 55 runs. Morley took 8 for 72; and the two bowled unchanged throughout both innings of the Australians. Murdoch and Gregory both earned the unenviable distinction of “ a pair of spectacles.” The second match, v. M.C.C. and Ground, was one of the most remarkable games ever played. Remarkable for many things—for the fact that it lasted but a single day—that a powerful eleven of the first club in the world were defeated by nine wickets by these incogniti from Australia—that only three batsmen secured double figures—that thirty- one wickets fell for 105 runs—that Spofforth took 10 of these wickets for 22, Boyle 8 for 17, and Alfred Shaw 6 for 14—that the Australians fielded in a manner that surpassed everything previously seen in England, that neither Murdoch nor Wyld allowed a single bye—but enough ; it would be almost impos­ sible to tell all that could be told about this historic match. Suffice it to say that, for scores of 33 and 19, Spofforth and Boyle (Allan took only one wicket, and that cost 14 runs) twice dismissed an M.C.C. eleven, which consisted of Messrs. W. G. Grace, A. N. Hornby, A. J. Webbe, G. F. Vernon, A. W, Ridley and C. Booth, with G. G. Hearne, Wyld, Flowers, Shaw, and Morley, and that the Australians, though none of them made a long stand or many runs, managed to win by nine wickets. To this match the subsequent success of the tour is largely to be attributed. Every­ one was now anxious to see these men per­ form. Their defeat of the M.C.C. had made them famous. No one was surprised when Yorkshire succumbed to them by six wickets, and Surrey by five. Nor was anyone sur­ prised when, thorough cricketers as they had proved themselves to be, they suffered defeat, by an innings and a run, at the hands of the Gentlemen of England. The English Eleven was thoroughly representative, con­ sisting as it did of the Hon. Edward and Alfred Lyttelton, Messrs. VV. G., E. M., and G. F. Grace, A. N. Hornby, A. G. Steel, A. P. Lucas, W. R. Gilbert, G. Strachan, and J A. Bush. Middlesex was next antagonised. Spofforth made 5G, the highest score yet credited to any member of the team. For the Metro­ politan County the Hon. E. Lyttelton scored 118 in his second innings ; but the other bats­ men cut up badly, and the Colonists won by 98 runs. A defeat by nine wickets from Yorkshire was followed by a draw with the Orleans Club—Alec Bannerman scoring 71 not out. and Horan 69. Then Leicestershire was decisively beaten, Charley Bannerman scor­ ing 133, the first Australian century made in England; 305 was next scored against a fairly strong scratch eleven at Hull—Allan 78, Blackham 53, Horan 50, but a draw was the result of the game. The next match, at Lord’s, was against Cambridge University. The Cantabs had that year the strongest eleven they have ever boasted. Their season’s record was an un­ defeated one, and they beat the Australians by an innings and 72 runs. A. P. Lucas was unable to play; but a glance at the names of those who composed the eleven will reveal its strength—A. and E, Lyttelton, A. G. and D. Q. Steel, H. Whitfeld, Ivo Bligh, L. K. Jarvis, P. H. Morton, A. F. J. Ford, C. Pigg, and H. Wood. Morton bowled splendidly, his fast trundling obtaining twelve wickets for 90 runs. A. Lyttelton scored 72, and A. G. Steel 59. This is the only time that a Cambridge University team has played, as a ‘ Varsity team, after the match against Oxford at Lord’s. A draw against Lancashire ensued. Then came a decisive victory over Sussex, and a narrow one over Eleven Players at the Oval. In this latter match the late E. Barratt accomplished the remarkable feat of taking all the Australian wickets in the first innings. Gloucestershire was next beaten, and a return with the same county, begun late on the second day to play out time, left drawn. A draw was also the result of a meeting with a strong amateur team entitled Lord Londes­ borough’s Eleven at Scarborough; and still another draw was made in a match with a fairly representative eleven of players. The list of important matches was brought to a close by a draw with the West of Scotland Club. Of the nineteen even-handed matches played, 10 had been won, 5 drawn, and lost. Of the 21 matches against odds the Aus­ tralians won 8, drew 10, and lost 3, those v. Yeadon, Longsight (helped by G. F. Grace and W. R. Gilbert) and Sunderland. Another match, that v. Hunslet, was note- able for the fact that Louis Hall, the famous Yorkshire stonewaller, scored 79, and thus found re-admission into the county team, for which he had been tried with little” success in 1873. As everyone knows, Hall is still in the Yorkshire team, and is not likely to be dropped again just yet. Taken altogether the results of the tour were such as the Australians had ex­ cellent reason to be proud of. They had shown good bowling, grand fielding, and by no means contemptible batting. With admirable pluck and perseverance they had played day after day from May 20th to September 17th ; they had made friends wherever they went; and they had caused Englishmen to feel that the cricket supremacy of the old country was not an absolutely foregone conclusion. They had awakened a new interest in first-class cricket; and they had almost revolutionised the pre­ viously somewhat slack system of fielding, for they had proved that a smart scientific set of fieldsmen, possessed of no extra­ ordinary batting abilities, though backed up by three thoroughly first-class bowlers, could win a large proportion of their matches. Blackham had proved that a long stop was by no means necessary to a first-class wicket-keeper. Charles Bannerman had shown himself almost as great a batsman as his most ardent admirers had declared him, head and shoulders above any of his col­ leagues in the run-getting department. Spofforth had made a reputation that placed him at one bound second to no bowler in the world, and earned for him the soubriquet of “ the Demon,” a nickname well justified by the funk he created among English batsmen. For the rest of the players we must leave the appended tables to speak. BATTING AVERAGES. lim es Most in Inns, not out. Runs, an Inns. Aver. C. Bannerman ... T. Horan .......... G. H. Bailey ... F. R. Sponorth A. C.Bannerman T. W. Garrett ... D. W.Gregory ... F. E. A llan........ H. F. Boyle ... 33 ..,. 1 ... 770 ... 133 .. 24 2 23 ... 9 ... 261 ... 53 ... 18.9 10 ..,. 2 ... 124 ..,. 32 ... 15.4 30 .. 5 ... 368 ... 49 .... 11.18 32 ... 2 .... 428 ... 61 ... 14.8 25 ... 5 ,... 280 ..,. 40 ... 14. 80 ... 2 ... 383 ... 56 ..,. 1*.19 28 ... 2 .,.. 351 ..,. 71* . ,. 13.13 29 ..,. 1 .... 335 ... 43 .. 11.27 26 .. 2 ... 271 ... 57 .... 11 7 28 .,.. 6 .,.. 231 ..,. 78 ... 10.11 25 ., 6 ... 128 ... 18 ... 614 The following also batted Conway, 12—46 Tennent, 1—2 Tobin 1* ana Wilkinson, 0