# Cricket (Lyttelton, 1898)/Chapter 5

V
THE AUSTRALIANS
Since 1876, when in Australia a picked Australian eleven for the first time defeated an English team on level terms, the interest of all who follow the game has been fastened on Australia and its cricket methods. The Americans play, and fairly well; the South Africans the same, though they are for the most part English-born, who have learnt their cricket in England; there is cricket in the West Indies, India, and New Zealand; but it is impossible in this chapter to devote any space to these beyond expressing a most hearty welcome to the various elevens who visit our shores. Australian cricket, however, has been so interesting, and has had such an important bearing on the whole game, that it is well to examine into its history and development. ​When, in the early sixties, George Parr and H. H. Stephenson took out two elevens to Australia, they always played against odds; and, in fact, the style of Australian cricket in those days was of a very similar type to that encountered by the old All England and United Elevens in their tours about Great Britain, when they used to play against local twenty-two's, who were as a rule fortified by two good professional bowlers, such as Hodgson and Slinn.
But the first-rate English batting, bowling, and fielding shown by the two teams taken out by Parr and Stephenson must have had an enormous effect on Australian cricket; for between 1864 and 1873 (in which latter year W. G. Grace took out a fair but not first-rate lot) Australian cricket had improved to a large extent. But even Grace's eleven never contended on even terms with the Australians, although they did not always play against twenty-two opponents, and they were beaten on three occasions. Grace's eleven was not by any means first-class: it ​included men like Boult, W, R. Gilbert, Bush, Andrew Greenwood; and Richard Humphrey, who would not have been included in any representative eleven; and it was not till three years later, when a strong professional eleven went out, that the really genuine Australian cricketer was found to have developed far enough to play an English eleven on even terms—and to defeat them. Any one who saw the Colonists play as Lillywhite's team did, knew that for all practical purposes they had, on smooth wickets, a splendid forcing bat in Charles Bannerman, and several bowlers quite in the first rank—Spofforth, Boyle, Kendall, and Evans. Still, so slow, and perhaps I may add, so unwilling, were the Britishers to dream that any eleven outside England could be compared with a really representative English team, that when Gregory's eleven came to England, few anticipated anything but easy victories over the Colonists, and they sat all the more easy when Notts won the first match in the innings, before our visitors had lost their ​sea-legs. But Lords told another tale, and a strong M.C.C. eleven, on the 27th May 1878, met bowlers and a field of a style unlike what had been seen before—novel, unexpected, and full of genius. The wickets in those days were not quite as good as they are now, but still the question a long-headed cricketer asked himself after playing the Australians was, "What is there in their bowling which makes it unlike any other I have seen?" It was Spofforth who made a new epoch in the history of cricket, for he it was who first showed us a bowler able to bowl the fastest pace one ball, and then, with no apparent change of style or action, a slower ball, both with amazing accuracy, and frequently with fatal results to the batsman. If any bowler in the world studied and made a science of his work, it was Spofforth. He knew where his field ought to be placed; he thought last thing at night of bowling, and had an idea for every ball, a plan of campaign for every batsman. Though his pace, as a general rule, was so fast, it was so ​accurate that the astonished English public saw a wicket-keeper standing up to the wicket with no long-stop, and for a time English batsmen were in a sort of panic when they played him. It is true that the year was wettish, but Grace was in his prime, or nearly so, and yet he could not in that year be said to have proved himself Spofforth's master. There were Allan, Boyle, Garrett, and Midwinter to help Spofforth, and a rare good bowling lot they were; whilst in fielding there was no eleven in England that could surpass or even equal them. The field knew their bowlers and believed in them; Blackham as a wicket-keep was marvellous; and the eleven, with the keenness inseparable from a first visit, threw themselves heart and soul into the whole season's cricket, with the result that only three matches were lost.
Much has been said of the bowling and fielding of this first Colonial team: how can the batting be described? There was Charles Bannerman, a grand hitter, and with good, ​or, at any rate, fair defence, but apart from him there was no good bat in the eleven. The batting was rough, far from correct, very unscientific: several of the eleven—Murdoch, and, in a lesser degree, Horan—showed symptoms of developing into sound bats, but that was all. The experience gained in England no doubt made Murdoch what he afterwards became; and, speaking generally, it may be said that as England learnt a big lesson from Australia in bowling, Australia was equally indebted to England for their subsequent success in batting. Charles Bannerman was a natural bat of the first order, but Murdoch was perhaps the first and the best of the Australian batsmen, and was the forerunner of many others, who, I think, owed their success largely to the sort of stamp they got through Murdoch from English batsmen. But another great fact was early recognised in Australian cricket, whether by accident or design I do not know, and that was the undoubted advantage of hitting.
Possibly Charles Bannerman taught them ​this; but till the eleven of 1896 every Australian representative eleven has had one or more big hitters in their ranks. Bannerman himself, Bonnor, M'Donnelly Massie, Lyons, have as hitters never been surpassed in England; and in any matches, especially those played on soft, difficult wickets, the value of a big hitter is difficult to overestimate. The match is never won for the outside till the last big hitter is out, for he may turn the tide. Massie's hitting, as well as Spofforth's bowling, won the celebrated match at the Oval in 1882, and Lyons' great innings against the M.C.C. in 1893 saved that match also.
The two greatest teams from Australia were those of 1882 and 1884, and though the first is generally assumed to have been the best, my own opinion is that there was little if anything to choose between them. They consisted largely of the same players, but Scott was in the 1884 eleven, and was a better batsman than Horan, and Midwinter played instead of Garrett as a bowler. Both ​of these elevens were first-class, perhaps as good working elevens as the world has ever seen. Murdoch, M'Donnell, Scott, Giffen, Bonnor, Horan, and Massie were six batsmen in whom was mingled science, soundness, and daring hitting, a most dangerous combination, as every bowler knows; in bowling there were Spofforth, Boyle, Palmer, Giffen, Garrett, and Midwinter, and in this respect I believe the first four have never been surpassed or even quite equalled; and the wicket-keeping and fielding was quite first-rate.
These two elevens were the high-water mark of Australian cricket; none of the subsequent teams have come up to them. The 1896 eleven was a sound and excellent one; those of 1886, 1888, 1890, and 1893 were far inferior. Of course, in their own country, where England has never been able to send her very best eleven, the two elevens have played very evenly; and the struggle is by no means over yet, as there are no signs that visits will not be interchanged for many years to come.
​The first notable struggles between Stoddart's eleven and Australia in 1895 and 1896 possessed an historic interest, and perhaps the success of the Englishmen by three victories to two away from their own country, having lost the toss four matches out of the five, is as good a specimen of English pluck and skill as is to be found in the history of the game. Some luck there was no doubt, the first match having been won entirely owing to a break in the weather; but in the fourth match the English eleven had in this respect far the worst of the luck. But the great feats were in the first and last matches—the first, after the Australians had scored 586 in the first innings of the match; and the last, when they had made 414 in the first innings; and the Englishmen, having to get 298 to win, got them for the loss of four wickets. Looking at the whole series of matches from the point of view of an old critic, I may ascribe some of the English success to the extraordinary captaincy of Giffen, who seemed to think that he ought ​to bowl the whole time, the only change necessary being for him to change his end.
To select an eleven is always hard, and it is of momentous importance when you visit a far country; but it appears very strange to me that the Australians only played Hugh Trumble in one of these five test matches, when in 1896, in England, he proved himself to be, on the whole, except perhaps Richardson, the best bowler in the world. Trumble, in 1896, was irresistible on soft wickets, and had the power of making the ball turn on hard wickets (an invaluable quality). His bowling during that year was of a class that quite entitled him to a link in that glorious chain of bowlers consisting of Spofforth, Boyle, Palmer, Giffen, Allan, Garrett, Turner, Ferris, and Trumble.
I have already said, in the chapter on bowling, that on the modern true wickets plain accuracy is not sufficient to get batsmen out. I have never seen, with perhaps the exception of Peate, a better length bowler than Jack Hearne, and when the wicket is not of ​the easiest he has a good break and becomes very deadly; but you see batsmen, some of them not by any means first-rate, merely playing straight forward, and Hearne becomes easy. To get your opponents out on a hard wicket, you must sacrifice some accuracy to obtain turn and twist, and change of pace. Spofforth had both, especially the last; Palmer, Giffen, Turner, and Trumble had the first. This is the great lesson Englishmen have learnt from the Australians, who learnt it for themselves, because in Australia the wickets are more fast and true than they are in England, even in a hot summer. Some few bowlers have break naturally—Richardson has, and Lockwood had; but change of pace cannot be natural, it must be acquired by practice. Spofforth had some break, but he must have acquired his wonderful command of pace by long and diligent practice. To possess either or both of these qualities is to make a man a great bowler, but it is so difficult an art that—with grief I say it—I see no small danger of the ruining of ​cricket in consequence of the preponderance of the bat. In Australia, where they have many months' play, but fewer matches, they can play all important matches to a finish, and the number of runs is far too great for the interest of the game. But it is probably owing to these wickets that Australia possesses the bowling qualities that have made her great; and now that we have apparently struck upon a vein of dry season. Englishmen must copy the old Australian giants, Spofforth, Palmer, and Turner, and learn to practise those two gifts—break, and variation of pace.
What has caused the difference I hardly know, unless it is that in former days in Australia they did not play over three days, but the tendency of modern Australian batting has been to become slow and steady, to the sacrifice of hitting. This is possibly to make a stronger side for good, hard wickets; but on soft wickets, like those of 1888 and 1890, it is a great mistake to have no hitters. The change is probably ​owing to the fact that as time is unlimited for the big Australian matches, which are played to a finish, each man can play his own game. Such a game certainly pays in an English season like 1896, when the hot weather gave a series of hard wickets. On such wickets, especially if you happen to win the toss, a batting eleven like the Australian eleven of that year is very hard to beat.
As may be seen, on looking back over the twenty years since the first Australian eleven came to England, the great Colonial bowlers have had their happy days in England, where the weather is more variable in the long-run, rather than in their own country. Spofforth would not have attained the enviable position of the greatest bowler in the world on his bowling in Australia alone, where it is said that Turner and Palmer were thought as good. It was on English wickets that he earned undying fame. In his early cricket days the Australian batting was nothing like what it has since become; but against Englishmen in their own country nobody has ever ​approached his great feats in 1878, 1880, 1882, and 1884. The modern Australian bowler has horrified the old school, who used with justice to complain of the unfair delivery of Crossland and others, for two of the 1896 eleven bowled with no doubt unfair deliveries; in fact, the Australians began to throw when the vice was stamped out in England. But whatever may happen in the future, there can be no doubt that reciprocity was established between the two countries: England learned much from the Australians in bowling and fielding, and Australia learnt much from England in batting.
In 1897 Stoddart took out a team to Australia that Englishmen were content to believe was the best that ever visited Australia. Richardson was included, and, with the exception of Abel and Gunn, and perhaps one other alteration in October 1897, Englishmen were confident that an eleven had been sent out which would defeat the best Australian eleven. There has been a rude awakening: out of five test matches, Australia has easily won ​four. England won the toss in the first match and won; in the next three Australia won the toss and the three matches. In the final match England again won the toss, but lost the match, and the sad fact remains that the best English bowling, accurate and good as it was, gave the Australians no trouble whatever, while the more dodgy Australian bowling—Noble, Howell, Jones, and Trumble—has proved far away in advance of ours. England has been beaten hip and thigh; and though we feel humiliated, we must heartily congratulate the Australians, and take the lesson to heart, and realise the fact that on true wickets we must have bowlers of the Lohmann stamp, who are up to dodges, and bowl with the head, with change of pace, twist and spin.