Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

62 Read played one back to Palmer, and had to retire for a well played innings of 75 (9 for 293). The match also saw Test cricket’s first hat-trick - by Willie Bates, who dismissed McDonnell, Giffen and Bonnor with consecutive balls – and Read was involved. Bonnor played the first ball from Bates quietly into Read’s hands at mid-on, close in, to the great satisfaction of the field, Bates having taken three wickets with successive balls. 110 The third match of the series was played in Sydney – and again won by England, this time by 69 runs, Read making a significant contribution with joint top score (66 – with Tylecote in the first innings). So, England won the rubber 2-1 and recaptured the Ashes, at some point on the tour a bail being burned to convert the concept into reality. The three matches had been against W.L.Murdoch’s team that had toured England – and indeed billed as ‘English XI v Murdoch’s Australian XI 111 : the Australian team had remained unchanged throughout the three matches of the series while England had made one change, Morley replacing Vernon for the second and third matches. Fred Morley, the Nottinghamshire fast left-armer, had not in fact been fit enough to play in the first match, having broken a rib and being severely bruised in the collision between the Peshawar and the Glen Roy . They were injuries from which he never fully recovered and ones which contributed in part to his premature death two years later at the young age of thirty-three. Unlike Morley, however, English cricket was not yet dead and on behalf of those who five months earlier had lamented it, Cricket waxed if not exactly lyrical, then at least loosely poetical. NOT DEAD YET HOORAY! English cricket is still “all alive oh!” We thank you for proving that same Captain Ivo! Played out? Many prigs, I confess to that tune, I confess, lie But, faith, you’d convict ‘em of ‘bangs’, dashing Leslie, Or, if you should want further proof, why, I’ll trouble you A closer to read than Read W W. 112 110 Cricket 16 March 1883 111 Cricket 16 March 1883 112 Cricket 16 March 1883 Australia 1882/83 and 1887/88