Lives in Cricket No 2 - Johnny Briggs

Day two began in bright sunshine at 12.15pm with Briggs and his new partner, Hunter, moving purposefully to the wicket. Australia, needing just one wicket to wrap up the England innings, must have felt they would be soon be taking advantage of what appeared to be ideal batting conditions. But Briggs and Hunter took the fight to the home side, the latter twice driving Bruce to the boundary to set the tempo with Briggs adding a further eight fours. The Australians rang the changes to their bowling attack, but it made little difference as Briggs sailed on to his century. After reaching three figures his concentration must have dipped a little as he offered chances at 104 (missed at mid-off) and 117 (put down at short slip) before being brilliantly caught at square leg by the home captain, TomHoran, off the bowling of the reliable Jones. Wisden described Horan’s tumbling effort as one of the best ever witnessed at the ground. The pair had added 98 runs in an hour as they advanced the total to 401. Briggs might well have been the recipient of one of the earliest ‘Man of the Match’ awards in cricket history, being presented with a prize of £10 by a cricket supporter for his efforts at the crease. More to the point, he was even cheered off the field by the home crowd. It is fair to say that Briggs’ achievement must be tempered by the fact that the Australians fielded a shadow team, with nine players making their Test debuts after those who had represented Australia in the First Test demanded 50 per cent of the gate receipts as their match fee for the Second Test. Unsurprisingly, the Australian Cricket Association declined to do business on these terms and, of the eleven which took the field at the MCG, only two – Horan and Jones – had played at this level before. One of the players making his debut was Sam Morris, born in Hobart of West Indian parents, who thus became the first non-white to represent Australia. After compiling his hundred, Briggs even got to bowl for the first time in a Test, but his eight four-ball overs produced no wickets although his spell cost him only 13 runs – a fair performance as he had been hampered by an injury in the field which had split his little finger. But although Australia’s scratch team battled hard, England romped to a ten-wicket win, needing just five for victory in their second innings. Briggs came down to earth with a bump in the match against New South Wales which followed the Second Test despite again being Touring Australia for the first time 27