Lives in Cricket No 13 - AP Lucas

enemy than the Englishmen. A 22-year-old all-round sportsman, he had umpired in four of their matches without any major complaint but, when Murdoch was on ten, Coulthard gave him run out. Royle recorded his view of events: The ‘Larrikins’ rushed the ground. Harris refused to change our umpire, as we considered the decision a good one. Play was subsequently stopped for the day, as the crowd would not let us go on. During the row, Harris was struck with a stick, but not hurt. It was a most disgraceful affair, and took its origin from some of the ‘better’ class in the pavilion. The civic and cricket authorities and the press immediately apologised but Harris replied that ‘it was an occurrence which it was impossible he should forget’. The game resumed on Monday when the last six New South Wales wickets fell with the score on 49, Ulyett taking four in four balls, but that was almost incidental. Harris wrote a letter accusing the New South Wales cricket authorities of conniving in betting that he believed to be the chief cause of The Disturbance, and they responded with an indignant denial. Only in September 1880, when the Surrey secretary persuaded Harris to captain England in their first home Test against Australia, did the dust really settle. Lucas usually preferred conciliation to confrontation, so it may be significant that, of the tourists invited to play in the 1880 Test in England, he, Harris and Penn accepted, while Hornby, Emmett and Ulyett refused. In 1893 he told The Cricket Field that ‘everything went perfectly smoothly during the tour, which was none the less enjoyable because it was almost entirely without incident.’ The interviewer apparently had The Disturbance in mind, but Lucas seems to have had no direct involvement with the violence on the pitch, and his stonewalling matched anything he ever achieved at the crease: No, nothing out of the common. We had to travel by coach a good deal, but the nearest approach that we had to an adventure was when we passed through territory infested by the Kelly gang, who had ‘stuck up’ a bank in one of the towns that we passed through just before we came in. While all this was going on, Lucas and Royle did not neglect the cultural and sporting aspects of their tour. On the first evening, at the Theatre Royal, they saw an entertainment called John Bull . After the match they and three others rowed to Woolloomooloo Bay and back, probably a total of two miles or so. The next day six of them borrowed a yacht in which they ‘sailed all over the harbour and had great fun’. As a result of The Disturbance, a planned match against Australia was cancelled and the tourists returned to Melbourne, which probably suited them because … Visitors as well as residents spoke of ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ which was seen as bustling, up-to-date and ‘yankeefied’ in contrast with staid and old-fashioned Sydney, sometimes referred to by Melbournians as The Australian tour, 1878/79 51