Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

14 The Unlikeliest Test Cricketer returned with a score of 17 against XV of Natal at Pietermaritzburg early in February. But his batting had now peaked, and his remaining tour innings, in chronological order, were scores of just 4, 1, 0, 0 and 0. Considering that he came on the tour with at least some reputation as a bowler, it is surprising that McMaster did not bowl a single ball in any of his 13 tour matches. The lion’s share of the bowling was done by Johnny Briggs who took 293 wickets on the tour, at an average of just over 5; by Aubrey Smith with 134 at 7.4; and by Arnold Fothergill with 119 at just under 7. Between them these three bowled almost 90 per cent of the overs bowled during the tour, and took almost 93 per cent of the wickets; 15 but all the other members of the tour party, apart from McMaster and wicketkeeper Harry Wood, bowled on at least one occasion. Strange. In all, his tour record in his thirteen matches was 17 innings, twice not out, and a total of 107 runs at 7.13, with a top score of 34*. He also took three catches plus one, or perhaps two, more when fielding as a substitute; and he did not bowl. We can glean a little of his batting style from contemporary reports of tour games. He usually batted at eight or nine, dropping to ten on one occasion; but in two matches he went up the order, twice opening the batting (and being dismissed for one run on each occasion) and batting once at four (where he scored one run fewer). He does not seem to have been an aggressive or an overly confident batsman. More than once his arrival at the crease is followed in match reports by a statement to the effect that ‘a succession of [four-ball] maidens followed’ – there were as many as 17 in a row during his second innings in his first match. He seems also to have been an uncertain starter: he was dismissed first ball once on the tour, and second ball twice. And reports in Cox suggest that some of his run-scoring was a little fortuitous: ‘he snicked him for a single’; ‘he scored his first run by a pretty draw’; ‘McMaster scored one off Grant, but had the field been alert enough he would not have got that run’. His running between the wickets also seems to have left something to be desired: ‘McMaster went in only to run himself out by calling Hearne for an impossible run’ and ‘McMaster had a narrow shave of being run out in running a single for Briggs’. But his batting was not all dawdling, flukes and hesitations. He hit two boundaries in his innings of 17 against Natal in February, and one in his innings of 10 against Kimberley in mid-January. He probably hit other boundaries during the tour, but they are not referred to in the match reports available. In particular, we have little detail of his innings of 34* against South Western Districts early in January. Cox tells us that it was 15 The statistics in this paragraph are based on the scorecards in CricketArchive as at February 2011. CA acknowledges that there are some minor discrepancies in some of these cards. McMaster in resolute mode.