Lives in Cricket No 29 - AN Hornby

61 Emmett and Ulyett picked up stumps for self defence, but the tourists remained on the field. ‘For some thirty minutes or so I was surrounded by a howling mob,’ Harris explained, ‘resisting the entreaties of partisans and friends to return to the pavilion until the field was cleared, on the grounds that if our side left the field the other XI could claim the match.’ The outfield was eventually cleared, but Harris and Gregory remained at odds, until finally Gregory stomped off announcing the game was at an end. Harris asked Edmund Barton, the other umpire, to speak to Gregory, successfully persuading him to change his mind about keeping the NSW side off the field. Twenty-three years later Barton was elected Australia’s first prime minister, and it was believed that the publicity he received for his peace-keeping efforts helped him take the first step towards that role, when he won a state lower house seat later in 1879. Meanwhile, the crowd had once more stormed onto the field which again had to be cleared. Finally, Alick Bannerman and Nat Thomson came out to resume the NSW innings, but before the first ball could be bowled, the crowd invaded for a third time. This time they couldn’t be shifted and play was eventually abandoned for the day. Harris and his players refused to leave the playing area until the official close of play. ‘Beyond slyly kicking me once or twice the mob behaved very well!’ observed the skipper. After a pause for reflection on the Sabbath, the game resumed on Monday without any further interruptions. By now rain had affected the pitch and Harris’s XI wrapped up an innings victory as the NSW innings subsided quickly. Initially, the local press condemned the riot, with the Sydney Morning Herald calling it ‘a blot upon the colony for some years to come’, while the South Australian Register said it was ‘a disgrace to the people’. But the SMH also pointed out that ‘one of the English professionals made use of a grossly insulting remark to the crowd about their being nothing but sons of convicts and this no doubt had something to do with their frenzied excitement which arose all at once, and incited the crowd to acts of violence’. The matter, though, was far from over, and the publication of a letter from Harris about the incident stirred up a veritable hornet’s nest. Voyage of discovery 2