Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

69 Chapter Thirteen Australia Fair: The Triumph of Trumper Any objective survey of the South Africans’ tour of Australia in 1910/11 would focus on the strength of the home side who won four of the five Tests. Victor Trumper delighted the spectators with his spectacular and prolific stroke play. He scored 662 runs in nine innings in the Test matches, twice not out, at an average of 94.57. He hit two centuries, 159 in the second match of the series, and an unbeaten 214 in the third, as well as 87 in the fourth, and had reached 74 not out when the fifth match was won. Warren Bardsley stroked 573 runs at an average of 63.66 and both Clem Hill and Warwick Armstrong accumulated over 400 runs at an average of over 50. The attack too was high-powered. The extreme pace of ‘Tibby’ Cotter was too much for the tourists in several games but his 22 victims, at 28.77 each, had to yield to Bill Whitty’s return of 37 wickets at 17.08, which was a remarkable record for the fast- medium left-hander in such a high scoring series in which the home side totalled 528, 348, 327, 465, 339, 328, 578, 364 and 198 for three – scores which indicate how fast and true were the conditions for batting. The Australians were all over their visitors in the First Test at Sydney, in which Cotter and Whitty secured eight victims each. In the second at Melbourne though, the South Africans made an encouraging riposte, by accumulating 506 to which Aubrey Faulkner contributed a heroic score of 204. They looked assured of victory when set only 169 to win, but Whitty dashed all their expectations taking six wickets for 17 and, well supported by Cotter (four wickets for 47), saw the South Africans to defeat by 89 runs. Buck, who had taken four wickets for 81, was top scorer in the second-innings débâcle with his contribution of 17. Three days later, on 7 January 1911 at Adelaide, followed the third match of the series which produced the visitors’ crowning achievement of the tour, for both Buck and his team. Their batting was, in the words of Wisden , most patient and determined, indeed their first innings endured for nearly eight hours and a quarter to