Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

without further loss. Lucas scored only seven and 15 but took six wickets, including Billy Murdoch and Alec Bannerman, both bowled. He sent down more overs and took more wickets than Ulyett, who did not bowl at all in the next game and was perhaps carrying a minor injury. In an up-country game, Lucas with eight wickets and Emmett with seven, bowled unchanged and dismissed Eighteen of Bathurst for 47. The visitors responded with 229 but rain washed out the second day and left the match drawn in their favour. Lucas, Royle and Frank Penn then went to stay with Dr Richard Jenkins, another noted cattle breeder. His home, Nepean Towers, was a substantial two-storey Gothic revival country residence which he developed as ‘a centre of social, intellectual, religious, pastoral and agricultural activity’. Because of a misunderstanding, nobody was expecting the three young cricketers and ‘we walked on as far as the river Nepean, the scenery was very pretty’. Eventually they arrived and, after lunch, shot over eighty rabbits and ‘returned to the Towers very well satisfied with our day’s sport’. Ten years earlier a better-known visitor enjoyed the rabbit-shooting when Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh visited after being wounded in an assassination attempt in Sydney, and the social set joined him. There was a small cricket ground nearly opposite the house and ‘young Jenkins’ – in fact a year older than Royle – tried to persuade them to practise with him. Penn had only joined the tour in January and was happy to do so, but ‘Lucas and I kept away’. They went out ‘on horseback to hunt young kangaroos … and the dogs killed a couple or so’. They had to leave after lunch and ‘were very sorry to leave, as we had enjoyed ourselves immensely’. It was as well that they had this idyllic interlude, for the team was about to become embroiled in one of the most contentious cricket matches ever played. On 7 February the tourists began their return game against New South Wales. Harris won the toss and sent ‘Monkey’ Hornby and Lucas in to bat on an excellent wicket. They ‘played magnificently’ in a partnership of 125, said to be the first-ever century partnership in Australia. Spofforth then bowled Lucas for 51, on which the verdict of The Australian was ‘A fine exhibition of cricket, he did not give a chance all through.’ Ulyett and Harris took the score on to 217 for two but, according to Royle, ‘Spofforth cut up the wicket to such an extent with his feet that it was impossible to play.’ The last eight wickets fell for 50, but batting was equally hard for New South Wales. Despite a splendid 82 not out by Murdoch, they finished 90 behind and had to follow on. They were 19 without loss when there came what Wisden called, with masterly understatement, ‘The Disturbance’. 48 The custom was for each side to appoint its own umpire. The tourists had not taken one with them, so they asked the advice of the Melbourne Cricket Club. They recommended George Coulthard, who was from Victoria and therefore, in the eyes of some New South Welshmen, even more of an The Australian tour, 1878/79 50 48 As far as I can see, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Riot_1879, as modified 27 December 2008, is a thorough, balanced and well researched account of the affair.