Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

‘magnificent’ St John’s Church and the Palace, ‘a beautiful pile of buildings’. After a stop at Suez, the ship arrived at Galle, Ceylon on 15 November and the party transferred to the S.S.Assam. On 28 November the tourists had their first glimpse of Australia and went ashore at King George Sound, Albany, near the southernmost point of Western Australia. The party then spent almost a fortnight in Adelaide, where they were ‘treated with the greatest hospitality’. Cricket in South Australia was still developing, and in the only match there the English twelve defeated eighteen South Australians by three wickets. Lucas faced the first ball of the tour but made an inauspicious start, being dismissed for 12 and none and taking no wicket in four overs. On 16 December the tourists arrived in Melbourne and were driven to the Town Hall, where a crowd greeted them with hearty cheers and the mayor welcomed them to the city. After dinner at the Melbourne Club, they settled in at the Oriental Hotel, Collins Street. Two days later, five of the party played in a match against ‘18 West of England’, who were bowled out in 45 minutes for 34, after Lucas had made 79 out of 416. On Christmas Eve the twelve tourists batted all day for 434 against a fifteen of the Melbourne Club, Lucas top-scoring with 107. Royle noted that ‘many of us got out on purpose’ but does not say whether the game was concluded. As was the custom of the day, Royle left his card with several prominent Melbourne men who were probably known to him or his family. Lucas may have done the same, and certainly they were both invited to visit ‘the Moores’, who lived in the then wealthy and fashionable seaside suburb of St Kilda. There were several families called Moore in the area but the most likely candidates are Thompson Moore and his brother James, who were owner-directors of various mining companies and lived at Stradbroke, 71 Grey Street. Royle and Lucas went back several times and took the opportunity to play the recently invented game of lawn tennis. The first major match of the tour started on Boxing Day against fifteen of Victoria who batted into the second day for 313, although Royle commented, ‘Our fielding not at all good.’ Lucas, with 33 overs, had his first extended bowl of the tour, taking three for 59. He then opened the batting with Ulyett and … When 146 runs had been scored a capital catch at point by the Victorian captain, Mr. Allee, settled Mr. Lucas for 90 – an innings that was chronicled as “first class cricket, without anything like a chance”, and that included among other fine hits “a grand hit to leg, the ball bounding over the boundary fence”. Hearty cheers greeted Mr. Lucas’s return from the wickets and … Lord Harris’s walk to them. 43 That enthusiasm was a considerable contrast to events later in the tour. Lucas took two more wickets in the fifteen’s second innings but they batted out the day and the match was drawn. The Australian tour, 1878/79 47 43 Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack, 1880.