Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

Chapter Six Return to First-Class Cricket In the winter of 1911/12, Rockley Wilson took what were to prove his first steps on the road back into first-class cricket. He was invited to join an MCC party of amateur cricketers to tour Argentina under the captaincy of Lord Hawke. This was the first visit to the country by an English cricket team and the last of the ten overseas tours that the indefatigable Lord Hawke led during his long playing career. The British community around Buenos Aires was one of the largest outside the Empire and cricket had been played there since early in the nineteenth century. However, organised cricket, with fixtures between teams from the English clubs, schools and businesses in the country had been established in Argentina for only about fifteen years at the time of MCC’s tour. The purpose of the tour was to increase interest in the game and encourage its further development. The tour was also a useful opportunity for Lord Hawke to look after his various business interests in the country. His Lordship described the tour as “entirely a holiday sort of country house trip.” 65 Even so the MCC party was a fairly strong one and included five players who were at some time captains of county teams, one of whom was A.C.MacLaren. Unusually for the time, but reflecting the social side of the trip, five of the twelve tourists were accompanied by their wives. Rockley Wilson’s inclusion, so many years after his withdrawal from first-class cricket, would have been very gratifying and the tour an exciting prospect. We can imagine him persuading his Headmaster at Winchester that the learning experience of a visit to South America would more than justify a short period of absence from his teaching post. The tourists were warmly received wherever they played. Every effort was made by their hosts to provide comfortable accommodation and travel between matches for their visitors though the tourists found the heat very trying – “about a million in 59 65 Lord Hawke, op.cit., p.276.