Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

97 four would certainly have gone in favour of Mr. Read’s side had there been time to finish them; another, that against 22 of Border District would probably also have been won; and in the remaining two, in which the Orange Free State and Griqualand West adopted the closure against their visitors, it is not by any means certain that the Colonists would have been successful in the end. Only one eleven a-side match was played, the last one of the tour, against a team representing the whole of South Africa, but the result, which afforded Mr. Read’s team the biggest victory they had gained, must have been disappointing for the Colonists. It is but fair to them, however, to state that their side was not so strong as it could have been made, the most notable absentee being A B Tancred, who has the reputation of being the best all-round player in South Africa. The Englishmen were received everywhere with the utmost enthusiasm, and were entertained with unbounded hospitality, and it seems very evident that one of the results of the visit will be to largely encourage the development of the game in the South African colonies. 170 In the sole Test, the second time Read had captained ‘England’, he maintained his 100% record. Against a very weak South African side, it would have been difficult to do otherwise. His team scored 369 against 97 and 83, Ferris bowling through the match to take 13 wickets for 91. He himself made 40, his Surrey colleague, wicket-keeper, Harry Wood 134 not out. In days when international qualification was more flexible, Ferris and Murdoch, who kept wicket in the second innings, had previously played for Australia, Frank Hearne making his début for South Africa had previously played for England. The Hearne family provided the two sides with three brothers and a cousin. Within a week, another team, subsequently called ‘England’ had beaten a team called ‘Australia’ by a rather larger margin. It all makes a bit of a nonsense of any trans-generation international statistical comparisons. Of those playing in this match, fourteen were making their Test début. In retrospect, it borders on the farcical that this match and other nineteenth-century ones against South Africa have been given Test match status. The opinion among English cricketers who had played against the South Africans was that they were club standard, perhaps just below second-class county standard. 171 The South African team that toured the British Isles two years 170 p 302 171 Cricket Quarterly Vol 2 p 249 South Africa 1891/92