Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

69 he runs into form, the bowlers will get it pretty hot from the Surrey crack. 123 ‘Felix’ was not wrong, as demonstrated by Read’s average of 55.45 in first-class matches, including 183 against South Australia at the Adelaide Oval – an innings straddling Christmas Eve and Boxing Day with Christmas Day (a Sunday) off in between - in a five-day match eventually drawn after South Australia had followed on. Read’s innings was eclipsed by George Giffen’s second innings of 203. South Australia’s 493 occupied 411.1 (four-ball) overs and spanned four days and ten and a half hours – riveting Christmas viewing. However, the over rate was 39 an hour, equivalent to 26 six-ball overs (and with more changeovers) – or about twice the rate in some present day first-class cricket. Tempora mutantur . Martin Hawke had been obliged to return home after this match because of the sudden death of his father, leaving Vernon to captain the side in most of the tourists’ matches, but providing the opportunity for Read to captain the combined ‘England’ side in the optimistically anticipated series of test matches, reduced eventually, alas, to a ‘series’ of one. Although the two English teams amalgamated to produce a strong eleven for the Test match, the fragmented state of Australian cricket meant that a number of leading players did not make themselves available for the match which began at Sydney on 10 February and was billed as the Combined English team v New South Wales and Victoria. The visitors made a modest 113, the home side an even more modest 42 (still their lowest Test total at home); the second innings followed a similar pattern, as Turner and Ferris brought their match tally to eighteen wickets, to be matched by Lohmann and Peel as England won by 126 runs in what Cricket described as ‘the most hollow fashion’. 124 So few were the batting achievements, that even a partnership of 18 between Shrewsbury and Read merited favourable comment in the media. Mr Walter Read, the captain, appeared. The best amateur and professional batsmen of England were now together, and the play of each was worthy of their great reputation. 125 There was, however, plenty of cricket outside the Test match - seven first-class matches against the state sides and an Australian XI, plus a number of others against the odds. The Australia 1882/83 and 1887/88 123 Cricket 29 December 1887 124 Cricket 29 March 1888 125 Cricket 29 March 1888