Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

61 When Ivo goes back with the urn, the urn; Studd, Steel, Read and Tylecote return; The welkin will ring loud, The great crowd will feel proud, Seeing Barlow and Bates with the urn, the urn; And the rest coming home with the urn. As with ‘The Ashes’, so with Test matches which history has perhaps endowed with a significance they did not possess at the time. Certainly Charles Alcock was prescient enough to see a future in international sport, but, as home teams to play in these matches were at the time in England, Australia and South Africa picked by the executive of the ground hosting the match and the visiting side privately selected, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that whatever the teams were called in the press they were not fully representative national sides. So, on Saturday 30 December, on the MCG ‘Australia’ began the first Test match against ‘England’ with half a dozen players, including Read, making their international début in the first contest for the Ashes. No one knew it was a Test match; no one knew it was for the Ashes. Read made a modest 19 and 29 in a match which Australia won by 9 wickets, a result reversed three weeks later when the sides met again. This time Read’s 75 was the top score on either side, as England recorded the first innings victory in a Test match, albeit billed in Wisden as the Hon Ivo Bligh’s XI v Mr Murdoch’s XI. It was not a chanceless innings; he was dropped twice and a run- out chance missed. W.W.Read was batting in splendid form…Read got Palmer well away to the off for four followed by a straight drive for two. Read then played one into the slips and Barnes called for a run which Read refused, and both batsmen were at the same end. Horan, who had secured the ball, threw it badly to the bowler’s wicket, and Spofforth being unable to reach it, Barnes got safely back to his own wicket. The following day, runs came fast, principally through the agency of Read. When the Surrey amateur’s score had reached 63, he drove one hard back to Giffen, but the bowler failed to hold it, and the batsman in return hit Palmer grandly to leg for 4. Australia 1882/83 and 1887/88