Lives in Cricket No 6 - Bill Copson

England and they were compelled to follow on their first innings of 239. Hardstaff was the only England player to exceed fifty. England fared even worse in their second innings and at close of play on the fourth day were 165 for eight. On the fifth morning, twelve thousand people were admitted free to watch the remainder of the match. Only two balls were bowled, and these dismissed Voce and Farnes. England thus lost by an innings and 200 runs their largest margin of defeat by Australia to date. This was the first occasion in Test Match history where a side had recovered from being two matches down to win a rubber by three games to two. It had been an absorbing series which had been watched by a total of 954,290 people and brought to an end the era of timeless Test Matches in Australia. It was a dispirited MCC side that left Australia for the calmer waters of New Zealand. The team had not been quite good enough to resist such a strong Australian comeback after losing their first two Tests. Their batting had let them down on many occasions. Leyland had been a success scoring two Test centuries and Voce was the most successful bowler with 26 wickets. Copson had not bowled well enough to break into the Test side. He had taken 20 wickets in first-class games but had not shown the deadly form he had displayed in England the previous summer. The tourists sailed in the S.S.Awatea from Sydney Harbour on 12 March and arrived in Auckland three days later. They were to play three first-class games in New Zealand but no Test Matches. Their first game was against a combined Canterbury and Otago side at Christchurch, a three day game that was ruined by rain as no play took place on the last day. Bill opened the bowling with Farnes after MCC had made 217. The home team were dismissed for 157 and he took three wickets for 26 runs in 14.4 overs. The next game, at the Basin Reserve Ground in Wellington, was billed as New Zealand v MCC, but there has always been a school of thought that this match deserved Test match status. The home team was certainly of Test match standard as it had been selected entirely from players chosen for the forthcoming tour of England in 1937. New Zealand were forced to follow on after MCC had posted 427 and in the second innings their batsmen managed to edge one run ahead of this total, but as only three minutes remained there was no time for MCC to complete a victory. Copson did not play in this game, but returned for the third match of this short tour against a combined Auckland and Wellington team at Eden Park, Auckland. 40 Australia and New Zealand