James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annnual 1881

3 2 LILLYWHITE'SCRICKETERS' ANNUAL. eleven, to use Murdoch's ownwords, that hadever been placed in a cricket- field , under every possible disadvantage , with their best bowler away, and with a huge score of 420 against them, the Australians made as gallant a fight as any English ground has ever witnessed , showing, too, as good cricket as the most fastidious English cricketer could wish to see . Of course the team possessed one great advantage in always playing together , but against this must be placed the immenseamount of travelling they had to go hrough , and, wheneverything is taken into consideration , it will be admitted that the results of their matches were extraordinary . W h e nit is con- sidered , too, that this was not the strongest eleven that the colonies could produce , and that Evans, of NewSouth Wales, acknowledged to be the best all-round m a nout there , Horan, and Garrett were all away, it will be easy to recognise the excellence of Australian cricket at the present time. Out of thirty -seven matches twenty-one were wonandonly four were lost ; three of the latter after Spofforth had so seriously injured his handas to beunable to play . That generally they were not polished batsmen , everyone will allow , butthe tail even had an oddknack of getting runs whenwanted. Several of the team were untrained bats without style , but everyone was possessed of agoodeye, and Murdochwould compare in any waywith the best of our English batsmen . That he should have made a good show was only to be expected from the fine cricket he showed on the previous occasion , and he w a sfar in advanceof the rest of the t e a m. A. C. B a n n e r m a ns h o w e d consistently good cricket until his hand was injured , and there was a little more hit in his batting than he displayed in 1878. McDonnell, quite a young cricketer , was exceptionally fortunate throughout the tour , and he is avery fine hitter , though far too anxious to have a crack before he gets set . Blackham, Slight , and Jarvis , if not taking bats , scored well at times ; andBoyle and Alexander could both hit freely on occasions . Bonnorwas abig hitter , reaching the sensational at times ; but perhaps the great dis- appointment was Groube , who came over fresh from a very high average , and did little , batting in a very awkward style , besides being a thoroughly bad judge of a run . Spofforth showed a great improvement in his batting , and of his bowling it will be enough to state that he wasmore destructive than even in 1878. His figures will showhowmarvellously successful he was, andno bowler we have ever seen possesses more judgment . He can alter his pace imperceptibly in varying his pitch , and no one has ever done more with the ball or been quicker to find out the weakness of a batsman. Palmer, of whomthe Australians themselves think very highly , bowled slow -round with very great success , and as he is quite young will comealong well. H eis not afraid of pitching the ball up, gets a great deal of work on to the ball both ways, and is pretty good with ' Yorkers . Boyle bowled very straight , and at times came off well , but after him the bowling was very weak, though Alexander at times proved effective against odds . Blackham's wicket -keeping was as brilliant as ever , and Jarvis took the gloves occa- sionally with success . All other details of the tour will be gathered from the following statistics : - c h R P 120