CHAPTER VIII
EARLIER AUSTRALIAN CRICKET
By the Earl of Darnley
The rivalry between English and Australian cricketers, which has been productive in recent times of so many splendid matches, can now look back to its starting-point through quite a respectably large number of years.
In the year 1861 H. H. Stephenson captained the first English team of cricketers which visited Australia, and it was seventeen years later before the seeds then sown had sufficiently matured to allow the Australians to feel full confidence in their powers to return the compliment, and to try conclusions with English players on their own grounds.
Between these dates, 1861 and 1878, three other English elevens visited Australia—G. Parr’s in 1863, W. G. Grace’s in 1873, and J. Lillywhite’s in 1876. Of these four elevens, three were almost wholly made up of professional players, and the fourth, that captained by “W. G.,” included five amateurs. Amongst their numbers, however, they included most of the great players of the day, and the first and second elevens in point of date each left behind in Australia one of its members, whose coaching was invaluable to the rising generation of Colonial players: these two instructors were C. Lawrence, who remained from the first English eleven, and W. Caffyn, about the best all-round man of his time, from the second. Many times has the writer heard striking testimony offered in Australia to the invaluable help given by these two cricketers in those early days, and certainly they might well have felt proud of the aptitude of such of their pupils as have come to us from 1878 onwards.
The matches in these first four English visits have no very special points of interest, as they were almost invariably played against considerable odds. It was, however, plain to all that the standard of cricket in Australia was greatly improving year by year, and no one was surprised when it was announced in 1878 that our friends felt themselves strong enough to send their first eleven to England, to try their fortunes on level terms. So many Australian elevens have come and gone since then, that it is difficult now to imagine the intense interest and excitement which was felt in English cricket circles at this epoch-making event. The arrival of an eleven which might hold its own against our best men was up to this time so wildly improbable an eventuality, that the majority of the English cricketing public could hardly be brought to believe in its possibility.
A very short time sufficed to show that there was no mistake about the capacity of our visitors for holding their own with our best men on even terms. After a moderate start at Nottingham, where the county won by one innings and a few runs, came perhaps the most startlingly dramatic match ever played by an Australian eleven in England, against a strong selection of the Marylebone Club, including such well-known performers as W. G. Grace, Hornby, Ridley, A. J. Webbe, A. Shaw, and Morley. To dispose of such a side for 33 and 19, and win the match by nine wickets in one day, was a feat that even the warmest admirers of the Australians had hardly imagined, and from that memorable day may be said to have begun that intensely keen and interesting rivalry that has lasted right up to the present day.
It may be worth while to attempt some slight personal sketch of this remarkable 1878 Australian eleven, which included several players who were to be the backbone of future elevens, and which achieved its successes in some measure by methods to which we in England were as yet strangers.
On looking through their batting list, there are names which suggest plentiful run-getting capabilities. As a matter of fact, however, at that time the batting was, with one exception, C. Bannerman, of the most rugged and unfinished description. The above-named exception, Bannerman, might well have been given a high place among contemporary batsmen as a fierce-hitting, powerful player, worthy of any eleven for batting alone, but Blackham, Midwinter, Horan, Murdoch, A. Bannerman, and Garrett had none of them yet acquired the powers which in after years were to be theirs in such abundant measure, and the batting of the whole side, after C. Bannerman, was distinctly of the rough, useful order. In this connection it may be noticed, however, that although finish was to be looked for in vain, even at this early stage was evident that fearless and dogged resistance to adverse circumstances which has since then successfully extricated many an Australian side from a tight place, and has always given their adversaries that uncomfortable feeling of never being quite certain that they have really got them safely beaten. What an invaluable asset is a reputation of this sort, and how well and consistently have our Australian friends sustained this hardly-earned character!