Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

spinner from County Durham, taking eleven wickets, and fast left-armer Emmanuel Blamires obtaining nine more. In the previous match, against the Gentlemen of Sussex, C.P. took three in the first innings, and the only wicket to fall in the second as Sussex won by nine wickets after South Wales scored just 48 in their first innings. At Lord’s, they fared little better in a twelve-a-side match as M.C.C. forced the Welsh to follow on, but they found a saviour in T.B.Jones, who scored 97 to help the visitors to the safety of a draw. The 1877 season may not have been a great year for the South Wales C.C., but the following year they secured their biggest ever fixture. This was a plummatch against the 1878 Australians whose tour was organised through their English agent James Lillywhite, jun. who had captained an all-professional side in Australia in 1876/77, playing in two representative matches later recognised as the first Tests. To secure a fixture with the Australians was a major coup for the South Wales club, and, in part, reflected the influence that both Llewelyn and Lewis held in the corridors of cricketing power. There is also further evidence of their influence in the choice of venue; the St. Helen’s ground in Swansea, rather than at the Arms Park in the rapidly industrialising town of Cardiff and the ground used by the Glamorganshire side as well as the town club. Llewelyn had helped to finance some of the costs incurred in the mid 1870s in creating the cricket field at St. Helen’s, just a short drive by horse and carriage from his country estate at Penllergaer. He had been a kindly benefactor to other good causes in the Swansea area, and with Lewis of Llandovery as his right-hand man, it was fitting that this plum fixture should take place on the new wicket overlooking Swansea Bay. Joseph Moore of Neath C.C., who served as secretary of the South Wales Club, reached an agreement with Lillywhite that the South Wales team would field eighteen players in a three-day fixture. But with the Australians playing an extensive series of fixtures spread throughout Great Britain, 19 this was subsequently amended to a Schoolmaster at Llandovery College 47 19 Between their first game which started on 20 May 1878 and their last which ended on 17 September, the Australians played forty matches in all. Twenty-one of these were against odds, mostly eighteens and twenty-twos, and nineteen were against other elevens, of which fifteen are recognised as first-class. The team comprised of twelve players, one of whom, W.E. Midwinter, made only ten appearances, after being ‘repossessed’ by Gloucestershire. The team thus played match after match with the side more or less unchanged.