Lives in Cricket No 24 - Edgar Willsher

82 Dan Newhall’s 20 the only double-figure score for the Twenty-Two in the whole match, it was clear that considerable technical work was still needed if Americans were ever to compete with the bat. Much the same could probably be said of the English professionals with regard to baseball. Monday, 12 October was set aside for a match at Nicetown against the Athletic Club of Philadelphia, and, according to the Inquirer , ‘a great deal of amusement was afforded the spectators by their queer mistakes in playing the game.’ Despite various attempts to even up the odds, the novices were again soundly beaten by 31 to 11, and only the allround play of Smith seems to have come up to scratch. And so, on to the final leg of the tour and the return match in New York. There, despite meeting the same high-class attack as in the second Philadelphian match, Willsher’s men were dominant in an innings victory over a rain-affected four days. Ned and George Freeman ran amok as they demolished ‘America’ for totals of 70 and 65 in reply to England’s 143. Freeman’s match haul of 18 wickets meant he had taken an astonishing 106 at an average of just 2.01 on the trip, while his captain, courtesy of a final-match analysis of 17 for 54, totalled 62 wickets at 2.34. The batting figures were less mind-boggling, the doughty John Smith being comfortably the leading scorer with 187 runs at a modest average of 20.77. However, bearing in mind the conditions encountered throughout, one needs to at least double that figure to give an idea of its true value. All that remained in the week before the City of Baltimore left for the return trip was a planned series of baseball matches, and a cricket match between two mixed teams of locals and All- Englanders. In the event, miserably wet weather meant that the only serious occasion was that of 20 October, when nine of the touring party played an ‘international’ baseball match against the Union Club – not the Atlantics, whose invitation seems never to have been taken up – before ‘the largest assemblage ever seen on the St George’s cricket grounds since the first appearance of the English cricketers.’ Even Willsher got stuck in, impressing by putting out 14 at first base, and overall it was the most improved display of the trip. After two and a half hours of non-stop entertainment, the Union, not without a fight, were victors by 40 to 21. The rain set in for the rest of the trip, curtailing any further sport. After almost nine weeks, the tourists finally arrived back at Liverpool on 3 November, after a ‘splendid run of ten days.’ So what did it all mean for the future of American cricket? Cricket on the Brain