Lives in Cricket No 4 - Ernie Jones

Jones did not bowl in the first Philadelphia match at Manheim, which Australia won by 123 runs, but gathered six cheap wickets at Elmwood in an innings victory in the second, and 5 for 82 in a comprehensive innings defeat at Haverford in the third. The Haverford result was a turnaround, but the Philadelphians had also had an innings win over the previous Australian team at Elmwood in 1893. In the earlier defeat the Australians were outbatted but in this game were outswung. The American trio of bowlers Barton King (with in-swing), Percy Clark (on his debut) and E.W.Clark were able to make the ball swerve from the leg to the off-side. Curiously, they had not employed the method in the earlier games because they believed that the Australians would not have difficulty with it. The pitch was soft and the Australians were dismissed for 121 and 101, while the Philadelphians scored 282 in their single innings. In what might be described as a remarkable learning curve the Americans then showed both Jones and Trott how to hold the ball to get it to swing, though they were not accurate enough in their first attempts to employ the method during the match. However, to show that one sport can learn from another, Trott, Jones and McKibbin took further instruction from some Pennsylvania baseballers and Jones developed a remarkable in-shooter which he declared he would use in all sorts of ways on Australian wickets. The Australians then crossed the United States before departing on a rough trip on the Mariposa across the Pacific from San Francisco to Auckland where they stopped off to play five second-class games in New Zealand. The tourists were supposed to return home by 30 November but they made another detour to Tasmania, playing a further game in Hobart, before arriving in Melbourne from Launceston by the Pateena on 15 December. Jones, Giffen and Hill left Melbourne on the express train to Adelaide that afternoon – Darling had returned a week earlier – and arrived at the Adelaide Railway Station to be met by a large crowd of cricket officials and well-wishers. Jones’ first overseas sojourn had lasted nine months. When tour manager Musgrove was called to give his report to the Australian Cricket Council at the end of December, he stated that the team had been successful in every way. In reply to a question on why they had not returned by the end of November, he commented that the visit to New Zealand and Tasmania had only made them fifteen days late, and that the members of the team The Great Fast Bowler: 1896-1899 28