Cricket 1896

68 CRICKET : A WEEKLY RECORD OF THE GAME. A pril 16, 1896. For the Australians it is different. Except when inter-colonial or international matches are in progress, most of them only play in matches on Saturdays. Our men—many of them—play from Monday to Saturday practically every week throughout a season extending over more than four months. And playing cricket —for a crack bowler especially—means thoroughly hard work. I referred, a few lines back, to the time when Australian cricket seemed to be on the down grade. Ten years back it was, for a short time, most decidedly so. Various causes had combined to bring about this effect. The non success of the 1886 team was one. Murdoch’s retire­ ment, after his marriage, was another. A third was the too frequent visits of English teams, which had the effect of satiating the public with cricket; while important matches had become so frequent that the leading players could not or would not always get off from business to take part in them. The double visit in 1887-88 brought the cloudy sky to its blackest. The Melbourne authorities had invited Lord Hawke (then the Hon. M. B. Hawke) to take out a team; the Sydney people had made arrangements with Shaw and Shrewsbury. Neither would give way. Both teams went ou t; both were financial failures. The leading players became involved in the quarrel between the two Associations; when Shrewsbury’steam played againstYictoria at Melbourne, not a member of the Mel­ bourne Club would take part, and the result was that the colony suffered the most crushing defeat recorded against it in the whole of its history. Not for any match against either team—not even for what was to have been the great match of the season, when the two teams combined to meetj all Australia—could the full strength of Australia be got together. Giffen, then at his best, refused to play in any matches save those in which his colony met the Melbourne Club (Mr. Vernon’s) team. Bruce would not play against Shrewbury’s team. Murdoch, as I have said before, had retired; Scott and Bonner were in England; Spofforth, whose arm seemed largely to have lost its old cunning, was preparing to move his household 'gods to the old country and only played in one match; Palmer had followed Murdoch’s example; Garrett and Boyle could not get wickets as of old; Bannerman, too, had temporarily fallen away from his true form. Almost the only man of the older Australians left, who still played regularly and still played well, was Percy M ’Donnell. Jones did good things in one or two matches; but the best of the work was done by three comparatively new men—Moses, Turner, and Ferris. To exemplify the extent to which the inability to get together a representative team had gone, it is easy to produce two or three pregnant facts. Mr. Vernon’s team played a (so-called) combined Australia at Melbourne, the only re­ presentatives of New South “Wales being Garrett, Ferris, and a player named Thorpe, who was never thought good enough to play for his colony in the inter­ colonials, and who owed his place solely to one or two good bowling performances in club cricket! Shrewsbury’s team met “ Combined Australia ” at Sydney. The only Victorian players in the Australian team were Walters, M’Shane and Worrall —by no means Victoria’s three best men. Even when the big match was played, and the Englishmen put into the field a team that might well have represented England at home (A. E. Stoddart, W. W. Read, W. Newham, Shrewsbury, Ulyett, Lohmann, Maurice Bead, Peel, Briggs, Attewell and Pilling), “ Com­ bined Australia ” included such compara­ tively weak men as Worrall, M’Shane, and F. J. Burton; while George Giffen, Bruce, Horan, J. W. Trumble and Spofforth were all absent. Interest in cricket had fallen to a very low ebb in the colonies at this time. Junior players refused promotion to senior clubs ; the prospects of playing in the inter-colonials seemed to have no charms for them. To complicate matters, in 1888-89, the V.C.A. and the N.S.W. C.A. quarrelled, the former wanting to play only one inter-colonial in each season, instead of two ; and for a season or two the Melbourne Club took over the entire management of the Colony’s matches with New South Wales. But then things began to straighten themselves out a bit. In the absence for some four seasons of any attraction from outside, the Australians had time to look to the encouragement of their own cricket. The new players who had been so badly needed to supply the empty places of the heroes of old arose. English tours proved the value of such men asTurner and Ferris, Trott and Lyons. The attendance of the public at matches increased by leaps and bounds; new games were arranged— South Australia and New South Wales had never met until the season of 1890-1 —and when Lord Sheffield’s team visited Australia in 1891-2 they found, not “ a house divided against itself,” but a cricket community full of vigour and life, with capable and ambitious young players springing up in every Capital, and every man not only willing, but eager to take his place in a representative eleven if needed. Not one of the colonies singly could make headway against his lord­ ship’s strong combination ; but All Aus­ tralia beat it in splendid fashion in two games out of three, and it Was evident that our kinsmen at the Antipodes were once more very nearly, if not quite, our equals in the cricket-field. The 1893 tour did not help forward the movement much. The men were less successful than had been anticipated; but it was not so much their lack of success as their lack of comradeship, and their unseemly bickering that did harm to the prestige of Australian cricket. With the visit of Stoddart’s team, these things, however, were nearly forgotten. The Englishmen were given the heartiest possible welcome. The test matches were the sternest of fights. Each side won one of the five largely by good fortune. Of the three in which luck was nearly enough even, England secured tw o ; but it was felt that the vanquished deserved almost as much credit as the victors. And not only these matches, but those with the single colonies showed that Australia was stronger in young players of really first-class ability than she had been for many years. Darling, Iredale, Clement Hill, Albert Trott came upon the Englishmen as surprises ; less prominent than these, but, nevertheless, evidently men to be reckoned with, were Reedman, Charles McLeod, Howell, Jones, and McKibbin. Most of the older players known in England had retired ; but there was still left George Giffen, a host in himself; while the men of what may be called the middle—Harry Trott, Lyons, and others—were still in their prime. And now, within a week of the publi­ cation of this, the Ninth Australian Team will have landed in England. A team rich in young blood, though not lacking older heads; a team which should, if its members play anywhere near their Aus­ tralian form, win, at least, twice as many matches as it loses; and, at least, we will all hope, a team which will pull well together. Wo need not be too jealous of our own supremacy in cricket. These Australians are bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. Short of their winning all three of the test matches, I for one—but, perhaps, I, as half an Australian by parentage, am too prejudiced in their favour—should grudge them no measure of success they might achieve. “ Advance Australia! ” Do any of my readers remember, I wonder, some excellent cricket verses that appeared—I think in the Sportsman — when the 1890 team was at the lowest point of its unfortunate career ? The first verse ran somewhat like this—I apologise to the author if I do not quote it word for word : “ Sigh for days that have departed, When Australia played the game ! Weep for batsmen lion-hearted, Whom no bowler e’er could tame! Now inter our cricket ashes ’Neath the melancholy sod, And inscribe upon the tombstone Cold ‘ Hie jacet,’ ‘ Ichabod ! ’ ” There will be no need, I hope and believe, for such a wail during the time of the Ninth Australian Team. Speaking of cricket verse, reminds me of a favourite idea of mine. I have often wondered whether a small volume of selected cricket verse would pay for publication ? Perhaps Mr. Andrew Lang is the only man who has written real poetry about cricket. Who can forget that ballade which begins:— “ The burden of hard hitting. Slog away ! Here thou shalt make a five and there a four 1 ” — But there is a good deal of excellent cricket verse extant which would repay collection—from the point of view of the lover of the game, that is: there is also the other point of view to be considered— that of the harmless, necessary publisher. But I have no time to deal with this sub­ ject just now. I had intended to give this week the full batting and bowling averages in all first-class matches of the members of the Ninth Australian Team, as also of the fifteen or sixteen other players, whose claims for inclusion in the team were