Cricket 1893

60 CRICKET s A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME; APRIL 13 1893 TH E AU STRAL IAN S IN ENGLAND . A CHAPTER OF CRICKET HISTORY. By J. N. P entelow . V III.— T he S um m ing - up . We have now traced, step by step, the history of Australian cricket in England, from the arrival of the first team in the spring of 1878 to the departure of the last in the autumn of 1890. We have shown how the reputation which was gained in 1878 and 1889 grew to such a height in 1882 and 1834 that it really seemed for a time as though the ohi!d would prove stronger than the parent—as though young Australia would prove superior to Old England in the bloodless warfare of which we have told. And we have been obliged to admit, with regret, chat the last three teams have done nothing to enhance the reputation of Austra­ lian cricket, although one of them, that of 1883, began its tour in suoh a way as to pro­ voke comparisons between it and the great !332 team—comparisons whioh undoubtedly led more than one critic to treat more severely than was at all nooessary its after ohequered career. But there is oertainly one powerful exouse to be made in extenuation of the small success which has attended the last three teams ; not one of them was at all representative. It is difficult now—it would have been difficalt even then, in face of the scanty information about Australian oricket which lovers of the game in England were able to obtain at that time—to say whether the 1878 team did or did not comprise the best players in the Colonies. So far as we may judge at this distance of time, the preseace of Nat Thompson and Evans, the latter of whom visited England at a later period, when his play was no longer what it had been, would have strengthened it. Still there can be no doubt that the men who formed it were the be3t men Mr. Conway could induoe to make the trip ; and the good record they had proves conclusively that they were at least worthy pioneers of those who were to follow them. The team of 1830 played so few first-class matches that it is extremely difficult to judge of the real value of tho3e players in it w h o had not before visitea, or did not afterwards visit, England. It would seem that batter men than Moule, Groube, Slight, and Alexander might have been chosen. But it must be remembered that some of the players who contributed bo greatly to the success of the next two tours had soarcely yet come into sufficient prominenoe to have any chance of being cho3enin 1830. We refer more particu­ larly to Giffen, Soott, and Masaie. Alexander was manager, too, and probably would not have figured so often in the team but for the accidentg which at various times orippled several of its members. The 1832 combination was, beyond all doubt, the most thoroughly representative of th© seven. In 1884 two or three good men were missing; but the team was a grand one, those who had been the mainstays of the previous oompany — Murdooh, their greatest b a t: Spofforth, their best bowler; Blackham, their unequalled wicket keeper ; and Giffen, their finest all round player—were all there. In 1835, m iny well-known forms were absent. How much they were missed as the tour wore on is well-known. In somewhat the same spirit that prompted that exclama­ tion in “ Marmion ” — “ 0 Douglas, for tliy leading wand ! Fierce Randolph, for thy speed ! 0 for one hour of Wallaoe wight, Or well-skill’d Bruce, to rule the fig h t!■*■— must the men of Scott’ s team have longed fruitlessly for the sage leadership, the unfailing cheeriness and pluck in the face of disaster, of Murdoch ; the stolid steady de. fence of little Aleo Bannerman: the fine scientific batting of H oran; the grand free hitting of Massie and M’Donnell. Yet we believe that the 1886 team would have done far better—though they could never, even under the most favourable circumstances, have equalled the records of the ’82 and ’84 com ­ binations—had that accident which, for a time, incapacitated Spofforth, and whioh led to the undoubted deterioration in his bowling, which was evident even when he was able to play again, not taken place. Next to Murdooh, Spofforth had been looked upon for some time as Australia’ s mo3t redoubtable oricketer, and the moral effect of his falling-off must not be left out of account. But even this oannot wholly excuse the limpness which was shown. The 1883 team had, perhaps, a greater disaster in Jones’ illness,bv which they lost the services of their most reliable bat. The tour was practically an experiment; it was to be successful or unsuccessful, according as Ferris and Turner fulfilled or disappointed expecta­ tion. How grandly those two youug b jwlers played ; how they won match after match for their side; how they got through such a season’s work as no two bowlers had ever accomplished before; all these things have been told. But, to our thinking, the experiment was far more successful than it deserved to be. Had Jones kept well the tour might have proved a great success. But what would have been the oonsequence had 1883 proved suoh a season as the tropical summer which preceded it ? The answer m iy I e w.itten in two words —total failure. Of the 1890 team we do not care to say much. Its tour is matter of such recent cricket history that the impression left by it must be still vivid in the minds of most of our readers. It was cer­ tainly not Murdoch’ sfault tnat it failed,though he himself seemed to have lost most of his happy knack of performing best on the most important occasions. The electrifying effect which the Murdoch of the old time had had upon the spirits of his men was not forgotten when he was elected captain of the team. But no merely mortal captain could have electri­ fied some of the men over whom Murdoch held sway in 1890. It must have been dismal to see Burn and Walters fail in game after gam e; to see Jones, the brilliant bat of 1886 and the earlier part of 1888, so absolutely un­ like him self; to see some of the other new men from whom so much had been expected quite failing to justify the eulogiums of their ardent admirers : to know, in fact, that there were but five dependable men in the team— himself, Blackham, Barrett, Turner, and Ferris; to miss the support of such men as Giffen, Bonuor, and Bannerman, all three of whom had actually promised to come ; yet all this and more Murdoch had to endure. The tour which had been projected for 1892 had to be given up, most of the great counties declaring against it, and refusing to arrange matches with the Australians. At the meeting of county secretaries at Lord’s in December, too, a resolution to the effect that it would be better if the Australians did not come again until 1894 was passed. Circumstances, however, occurred to alter that resolution. The double victory of the Australians over the formidable combination taken out to the Colonies by the Earl of Sheffield, in the first place, effectually dispelled the notion that Australian cricket was so much inferior to English as to preclude the possibility of a represen­ tative team ooming home with any great chance of success. But another and, perhaps, even more important influence came to the front to accelerate the visit of another Aus­ tralian team. The guarantees rightly re­ quired by the managements of the principal English clubs that any incoming team should be thoroughly representative of the Colonies had been provided by the formation of the Autralasian Cricket Council. One of the principal articles of its constitu­ tion was a proviso requiring the approval of the council for any combination visiting or leaving Australia; the necessity of such an imprimatur was of itself an assurance that an Australian team would for the future be representative. In view of this any objections to the proposed visit of Aus­ tralian cricketers to England were removed, The result was the satisfactory arrangement of a programme at the meeting of County secretaries at Lord’s in December last. With this the presence of the Eighth Australian term in England in 1893 became an accom­ plished fact. In the tables of averages which follow, the whole of the matches reckoned in the preced­ ing tables have been included, together with the match Smokers v. Non-Smokers at Lord’s in 1884, in which several of the Australians took part on each side, and which was indeed arranged chiefly in order to see them pitted against one another. The figures are thus completely lepresentative of the work done by Australian cricketers in England, and conse­ quently afford a good idea of the relative value of the various batsmen and bowlers. The letters in brackets against each name in the first table indicate the colony from whioh the player came—N. S. W. meaning New South Wales; V., Victoria; S, A ., South Australia; and T., Tasmania. BATTING AVERAGES. Tim es Hghst Runs Inns.not out score scrd. Aver W.L.Murdoch(N.S.W.)...225...18...286*.,5385...26.3 H. H. Massie (N.S.W .) ... 61... 4...206 ...1405 . 24.37 C. Bannerm an(N.S.W .).. 33... 1 . 1°3 ... 770...24 2 J. E. Barrett (V .) ...........64... 7... 97 ...1305,..22 51 G. Giffen (S .\.) ..........17J...14 . 119 ...340) 21.124 H. J. H. Scott (V ) ..........118...13...123 ...2275...21 70 P.S.M ’Donnell, (V. and N.S.W .)............ 192...7 ...105 ...3957...21.72 T. Horan (V.) .................. 84... 7.. 141*.. 16( 3...26.63 O. H. 8, Trott ( V . ) .........180... 8 183 ...2485 . 19.72 G.J. Bonnor (V.& N.SW.)215 ..17...124 ...£806 .19.44 A.C.Bannerm*n(N.S.W.)212 ..14...120*...3t’69 .18.105 W . Midwinter (V .)............ 56... 6... 67 ... 924...18.24 J. W . Trum ble (V.) ... 51... 8 ... 56*... 823 17.41 S. P. Jones ('N.S.W.) ...153 ... 7...151 ...2608 .17 126 W. Bruce ( V .) .................... 50... 4...106 ... 780..16.44 J. J. Lyons (S .A .)............108 .. 7... 99 ...1631...16 15 J. M’ll wraith (V.) ............ 41... 7 .. 62*... 533.. 15.23 G .E . Palm er (V .) ............152 . J8... 94 ...1920...1560 A. H. Jarvis (8 .1 ) ... 115 . 10 .. 96*...1589...15 14 J. M. Blackham (V .)... 288 . 83... 96 .. 3784...14.214 P . C. Charlton (N .8.W .) 47.. 11... 75*... 534...14.30 C.T.B.Turner(N.S.W .) 120... 2...103 .. 1717...44.65 G. H. Bailey (T.).........................25... 5... 40... 280...14. J. J. Ferris (N.8.W.)’... 117...29... 54*.. 1175 13 31 T. U. G roube(V .) ... 19... 3 .. 61 ... 2I0...18.2 J.D . Edwards (V.) ... 63 .12... 50*... 527...12.35 8. E. Gregory (N.^. W .) 60...15... 59* ... 563...12.28 T. W. Garrett fN.S.W.) 127 . 16 .. 69 .. 14'1... 12 79 E.Evans (N.S.W.) ... 84...15... 74*... 347...12.11 G. Alexander (V.) ... 19 ... 2... 47 ... 210 ..12 6 D. W. Gregory (N.S.W.) 26... 2... 57 ...271. F.R. SpofTorth (N.S.W. & V.) ........................ 160 ..27 .. 51 ...1493...11.30 J. W orrall (V ) ........... 61...10... 46 ... 581 ...11. F. E Allan (V.l .......... 28... 6... 78 ... 231...10.11 K. E. Burn (T.) ... ... f9 .. 4... 35*... 355 10.5 F. F . W alters (V.) ... 43 .. 3... 53*... 402...10.2 H. F. Boyle ( V .) ........... 155 . 47... 69 .. 1041... 9.69 H. Trum ble (V.) ... 50 ..12... 84*... 310... 8.6 S.VT.J. W oods (N.S W.) 10... 0... 18 ... 54... 5.4 R. J. Pope (N.S.W.) ... 12.. 4... 12 ... 37... 4.5 Played in less than ten innings C. W. Bea*, —2 in n s.- 0 not outs—5 ru n s; J.Conway, 2—C— 58; W. H. Cooper, 9—6—33; W. A. Giles. 1 - 0 —8 ; J. Hardie, 1 - 0 - 0 ; H. H. Ryslop, 1—0—1; W. H.Mor- ley, 9—8—75 ; J. Slight,6 - 0 —41 ; H. N. Tennent, 2 — 0-r3; Tobin, 1—1—1 ; Major Wardill, 1—C—17 ; W ilkinson, I —0—0,