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foot of page The greatest match ever? An international sport | The 1878 season | Monday, 27 May 1878 – MCC v Australians at Lord's"> |
The greatest match ever?
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I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your wickets down. |
That was the day the Australians "came down like a wolf on the fold", and "marked the commencement of the modern era of cricket".
The match was between MCC and the first Australian team to tour this country. It was scheduled for three days, but completed in one. 128 overs were bowled, and all four innings were completed. The bare statistics tell you that MCC scored 33 and 19; in reply, the Australians scored 41 and 12 for one to win by nine wickets. So, only 105 runs were scored, which remains the world record for the lowest match aggregate in first-class cricket, a key proviso in that being the completion without forfeit of all four innings. The second-lowest aggregate is 134, which has happened twice: Kent v Sussex in 1826, and England v The Bs in 1831.
But, statistics are only numbers, and they don't tell you the story.
As I said, the 1878 Australian team was the first to tour the British Isles. Now, how did that come about?
An international sport
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| George Parr |
Despite the lack of competition encountered in North America, the tour was a big success, and it gave English players the taste for more. Cricket was also making strides in Australia and New Zealand, so it wasn't long before English teams went there too. First came H. H. Stephenson's XI, which visited Australia only from January to March in 1862; and then another team led by Parr in the early months of 1864, which also went to New Zealand. Again, the tourists had to play odds matches, but they faced stiffer opposition than in North America, and some matches were drawn.
Ten years passed before the next tour, the one led by WG on his extended honeymoon. Fred was also involved, and there were a few useful pros like Harry Jupp, James Lillywhite, and James Southerton. This tour was a public relations disaster, for which WG himself was responsible, and it could easily have ended the Anglo-Aussie cricketing relationship. Fortunately, it didn't, and Lillywhite led an all-pro England team down under in 1876–77.
That tour, minus WG and jolly good chappery, was a huge success. The Aussies and Kiwis probably warmed to the English professionals as solid, down-to-earth blokes who treated them as equals, and could enjoy a laugh and a joke over a beer or three. It was during this tour that Test cricket began, albeit in retrospect. Lillywhite's XI played two matches against an Australia XI which included the best players from New South Wales and Victoria. To all extents and purposes, the teams were Australia and England, and their two matches were recognised as the first-ever Tests when the concept became a reality in the 1890s (more about all that another time).
The 1878 season
Moving on now to the "chilly and wet summer" of 1878, in which bad wickets reduced "all (batters) to comparative impotence". So, 1878 was a typical English summer, then?
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The 1878 Australians. Back row (standing): F. R. Spofforth, J. Conway (manager), F. E. Allan. Middle row: G. H. Bailey, T. P. Horan (leaning), T. W. Garrett, D. W. Gregory (captain), A. C. Bannerman, H. F. Boyle. Front row: C. Bannerman, W. L. Murdoch, J. McC. Blackham. Missing: W. E. Midwinter. |
Lillywhite's tour having been a huge success, it was inevitable that arrangements would be made for a reciprocal. 1877 was too soon, and it was 1878 when England welcomed a team of "the best cricketers in the colonies", which became known as the "First Australians", the first official Australian team to tour England. Its members were John Conway (manager), W. C. V. Gibbes (assistant-manager), Dave Gregory (captain), Frank Allan, George Bailey, Alick Bannerman, Charles Bannerman, Jack Blackham (wicket-keeper), Harry Boyle, Tom Garrett, Tom Horan, Billy Midwinter, Billy Murdoch, and Fred Spofforth.
Apart from Midwinter, who was already in England, the team left Sydney on 29 March 1878 and sailed via Auckland and Honolulu to San Francisco. From there, they travelled across America by train to New York. Yes, in the days of the Old West when the likes of the James/Younger Gang were still around! Anyway, they avoided gunfights and train robberies to reach New York safely. After crossing the Atlantic, they arrived in Liverpool on 13 May, and then went by train to Nottingham where they played their first match, starting on Monday, 20 May. This was a three-day fixture against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, and the Australians were well beaten by an innings and 14 runs, an inauspicious start which dampened much of the public enthusiasm that their visit had generated.
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| Billy Midwinter |
On Sunday, 26 May, the USEE team caught the ferry back to England, and WG continued by train to London, probably in the company of Bannerman and Midwinter, as all three were due to take part in the match at Lord's the following day. They could not have guessed that the game would be remembered as "arguably the most momentous six hours in cricket history".
Monday, 27 May 1878 – MCC v Australians at Lord's
The MCC team, captained by WG, was relatively strong with eight players who represented England during their careers. These were WG himself, A. N. Hornby (Lancashire), A. J. Webbe (Middlesex), Wilfred Flowers (Nottinghamshire), George Hearne (Kent), George Vernon (Middlesex), Alfred Shaw (Nottinghamshire), and Fred Morley (Nottinghamshire). The other three, all recognised first-class players, were Nottinghamshire wicket-keeper Frederick Wyld and two amateur batsmen Clement Booth and Arthur Ridley (both Hampshire).
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"The Demon Bowler". The Spy caricature of Fred Spofforth. Vanity Fair, July 1878. |
Play started at three minutes past twelve on a "sticky wicket", a wet pitch drying out as the sun began to shine. Only a small crowd was present and it all began well enough for WG as he hit the opening ball of the match from Allan for four. But another firm shot off his legs sent the second ball straight to Midwinter, and WG was "easily caught at square leg". Another wicket fell to Boyle in the next over and MCC were 5 for two but, with Hornby and Ridley seemingly settling in, they pushed the total on to 27. Then there was a change of bowling and Spofforth came on instead of Allan. Spofforth's first spell at Lord's was "truly demonic". Within another 11 overs, MCC were all out, Spofforth taking 6 for four in just 5.3 overs including a hat-trick with the wickets of Hearne, Shaw and Vernon. Shaw and Morley took five wickets apiece as they dismissed the Australians for 41, the last wicket falling just before the lunch interval.
In the afternoon session, Gregory decided to open his second innings attack with Spofforth and Boyle. The decisive moment was Spofforth's second ball to WG, which clean bowled him for 0. The MCC innings lasted just 50 minutes, Boyle taking 6 for three and Spofforth 4 for sixteen. Spofforth's match analysis was 14.3 overs, five maidens, 20 runs, 11 wickets. The Australians needed only 12 to win but, given the conditions, were by no means sure of getting them. They succeeded, losing only one wicket, and won a sensational match by 9 wickets.
The match aggregate of 105 runs remains the lowest-ever in first-class cricket. In his ghost-written Reminiscences (1899), WG recalled that there had been "only four and a half hours of actual cricket" net of the lunch interval and breaks between innings.
As news of the match spread, the crowd had grown in the afternoon sunshine and, at the end, they "mobbed the Australians as they left the field in a spirit of non-partisan enthusiasm". Around 500 had been present at the start but the number grew to 4,742 by the end; the receipts of £119 7s were given to the Australians and MCC paid the expenses. So ended a "memorable day of cold and puddles and calamity".
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| Byron |
The Australians came down like a wolf on the fold,
The Mary'bone Cracks for a trifle were bowled;
Our Grace before dinner was very soon done,
And Grace after dinner did not get a run.
No one in England had taken the Australians very seriously at first, even though they had beaten James Lillywhite's England team in what was retrospectively classified as the inaugural Test match. No one was too surprised when they lost their tour opener by an innings to the strong Nottinghamshire attack of Shaw and Morley on a rain-affected wicket. This perception of Australian cricketers was immediately, and permanently, revised such that "henceforth a match between Australia and any representative English team would overshadow any of the great matches". Although the match did not mark the birth of international cricket, it was the point in time at which the English sporting public wholeheartedly embraced the concept. As Lord Hawke put it:
(27 May 1878) this marked the commencement of the modern era of cricket.
As for WG, his whole approach to cricket was about what was needed to win the game in hand, and he never took kindly to defeat. Two decades later, in his Reminiscences, he gave the Australians due credit for their "glorious victory".
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