Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

Moving to Brisbane, for the last State game before the first Test, MCC met an undistinguished Queensland side whose most charismatic member was the talented but undisciplined ex-Surrey player Alan Marshal. In Queensland’s second innings Foster scythed through the first four batsmen, finishing with six wickets, Barnes had four and MCC ran out easy winners, after Foster hit a merry 33 not out, including an all-run six with Mead. There followed a two-day game at Toowoomba. Following an enthusiastic welcome at the Town Hall, alcohol flowed freely, and the gathering degenerated into a hilarious shambles. In a nice little holiday, Rhodes took his only wickets of the tour and Foster had four cheap victims. Outstanding for Toowoomba was a 15-year-old, Eric Knowles. Sadly, forecasts of a bright future after a century on Sheffield Shield debut were not realised, mainly due to lack of opportunity. The party returned to Brisbane to take on an ‘Australian XI’, a mixed bag under the captaincy of Trumper and including the ubiquitous Jack Crawford. 44 The ‘Gabba’ doubled as a trotting track and, in his tour book, Jack Hobbs mentioned that though not a betting man he made 18 pence as unofficial bookie for the other players. One wonders at the feelings of the ‘proper’ bookmakers; more importantly had Foster yet caught the gambling bug which served him so badly in later years? Later in the tour the party were Lord Duncan’s guests at a Melbourne race meeting and Foster ‘ran through the card’. Leslie Duckworth remarked in his Story of Warwickshire Cricket the advice proffered by Foster to keep within your limits when betting was not advice he himself followed in later years. MCC made a disastrous start, losing four wickets, including Foster’s, to the pace of John McLaren but determined batting by Kinneir helped MCC to 247. Kinneir’s innings, watched close-up by Douglas, probably won him his first and only Test call aged 40, just days later. MCC held out for a three-day draw after some indifferent play from Foster, and contentious umpiring. Now on to Sydney and something more important: the First Test. This commenced on 15 December, and selection options were limited by Warner’s illness and injury to Hitch. Joe Vine, as twelfth man, Iremonger, and Tiger Smith also sat the match out. Skipper Douglas, Foster, Hearne, Kinneir and Mead made their Test debuts and to worshippers of experience England would have been on a loser from the start. So it turned out. Things started badly; Clem Hill elected to bat and Douglas had the effrontery to take the new ball with Foster, despite having, in Barnes, the best new ball bowler in the world. Douglas had travelled to Sydney by sea Under the Southern Cross 56 44 Crawford, a Surrey vicar’s son and a great player in his youth, was sacked by Surrey for indiscipline and emigrated to South Australia to be player-coach and teach at St Peter’s College, Adelaide. Personal indolence and character faults saw things again go awry and it must have been a relief to the cricket authorities when he did a ‘flit’ to New Zealand, albeit leaving behind a mountain of debt and a wife and child. Small wonder the SACA committee resolved to take more care over future imports.