When in the first innings eight English wickets had fallen for 181 runs on a good wicket, the match looked almost over, but with W. W. Read’s appearance began a notable partnership, which was not broken before 151 runs had been added to the score. Read’s 117 ranks very high indeed among the great innings of great matches, and his mastery of the varied and excellent bowling brought against him was complete. Two wickets down for 85 runs represented England’s second innings, and Australia could claim an immense advantage on the match as far as it went.
The third match, at Lord’s, ended in quite another fashion with a one-innings defeat for Australia, principally due to a very fine 148 by A. G. Steel for England, and some excellent bowling by the two Yorkshiremen, Peate and Ulyett.
The English representative eleven of the day showed a very high standard of play, especially in batting. When one finds A. Lyttelton going in ninth on the list of batsmen, and W. W. Read tenth, the side may be safely estimated to be as strong in batting as any that has ever played together. The bowling, on the other hand, did not stand out in quite such overwhelming strength, although Peate, Ulyett, A. G. Steel, Barnes, and Barlow are a by no means contemptible selection. On the whole year’s performances in batting, Murdoch once more emphasised his superiority, with an average of 30 per innings, 1.7 in advance of his next competitor, while most of the older hands, in addition to Scott, came out on the list with good figures.
Spofforth’s bowling was if possible even more successful than before—216 wickets, with an average of 12 runs per wicket; with Palmer second, with 132 wickets for an average of 16 runs. These two, with Boyle and Giffen, made up an attack strong at all points.
Eighteen matches won and seven lost does not compare too favourably with the figures of the 1882 eleven, and this difference was, we think, exactly to be accounted for by the slight change for the worse in the alteration made in the old eleven by the substitution of the four new men before alluded to.
Although their successes had possibly not quite equalled those of 1882, the four players who had not been able to come to England were still in as good form as ever, and Australian cricket at this time was still at about its highest point. No real symptoms of that gradual decline which lasted up to 1894 had commenced to show themselves before about 1885-86.
In the winter of 1884 another strong lot of professionals under Alfred Shaw visited Australia, and an unfortunate dispute with the lately-returned Australian eleven deprived most of the chief matches of their representative character, as the members of the Australian eleven refused to play in them. However, towards the end of the tour matters were smoothed over, and three matches were played against Australia’s full strength. The first, a very fine struggle, was won by Australia by 7 runs, the second by the same side by eight wickets, and the third by the Englishmen by an innings and 98 runs. The professionals were a very strong side at all points of the game, and Barnes greatly distinguished himself by heading both batting and bowling averages, sharing the batting honours with Shrewsbury and Bates, while the bowling was very equally distributed among six well-known names, Barnes, Bates, Flowers, Attewell, Ulyett, and Peel.
The 1886 Australian eleven in England furnished some names new to English grounds, and for the first time Evans was able to find the time for the journey. As it turned out, however, his great reputation would have been better cared for if he had not been brought over for the first time when his powers were decidedly on the wane, and both in batting and bowling he was practically a failure. Jarvis appears as a wicket-keeper, and a very able colleague to Blackham he has always proved himself, besides being at times useful with the bat. J. Trumble, W. Bruce, and M’Ilwraith are the other new names, and of these, Bruce alone has made much mark in first-class cricket,—a beautiful fieldsman and thrower, and a pretty, hard-hitting, left-handed batsman, but one who has never quite succeeded in doing himself full justice on English grounds.
The same signs of deterioration that were observable in the 1884 eleven, as compared with that of 1882, were now more strongly pronounced. The new men were quite unable to adequately replace Murdoch, Macdonnell, Bannerman, Massie, Horan, and Boyle, while, to add to their misfortunes, Spofforth met with a severe accident which crippled him for some time, and never allowed him to again reach his proper form during the tour. On the other hand, their English opponents could command a very strong side, and in place of the dearth of fine new players which the Australians were experiencing, found ready to hand several younger players of great promise. The days of Lohmann, Briggs, and Stoddart were commencing, names that were destined to furnish a difficult nut for Australians to crack for many a day. The older men too on the English side were all at the best period of their play, and Grace, Shrewsbury, Read, and Steel could hardly fail to put up a big score among them on any given occasion. The only cheerful feature of a dismal record, in which the nine victories could only claim a narrow lead of one over the eight defeats, was the fine all-round form of Giffen. This great player, now at the top of his game, headed both batting and bowling averages, and was to be from this time a tower of strength to Australian cricket. Spofforth’s unfortunate accident came at a time when there seemed every likelihood of his being quite as successful as ever, but from that time to the end of the tour his bowling powers seemed to have temporarily deserted him, and that alone was a disaster to the side of the very first magnitude. Garrett and Palmer still continued to do yeoman service in bowling, although rather more expensive than formerly, and both S. Jones and Scott gave some fine batting displays.
Of the three matches against England, the first was won by England by the small margin of four wickets, and each of the other two in one innings. Fortune had indeed deserted our Australian friends for the moment, and, worst of all, the absence of promising young players gave no hope for the immediate future. Yet, if we consider for a moment how comparatively small had been the amount of first-class cricket hitherto played in Australia, we may well rather wonder at the remarkable brilliancy of the players sent to us up to this time, than that they should now find some difficulty in replacing them.