Coming a cropper
England's demise at the hands of window cleaner Callum Thorp early in their tour brought back memories of yesteryear's encounters in the Australian bush.
Here's a record in Australia that England can be proud of: played 254, won 115, lost three, the rest drawn or abandoned. Teams who travelled tens of thousands of miles achieved this fantastic set of results. It is a finite record, too, being the cumulative result of all the matches played by MCC and England teams against the various country sides all over the massive Australian continent.
On the most recent tour, in 1998/99, Alec Stewart's side defeated a Queensland Country XII but that fixture was a day/night game in Brisbane. The most recent, proper up-country match was against a South Australian Country XI at Port Pirie on the 1990/91 tour.
With increased financial considerations, shorter tours and improvements in communication technology and transportation, there is less need to take the international cricketing gospel to the far-flung corners of the great southern land. Like the loss of any institution, though, some regrets linger.
On the busiest tours, nearly 20 country and provincial centres would be visited by the tourists. Current players might suggest their international commitments involve too much travel and an endless round of meaningless fixtures. But at least they always play on good grounds and do not arrive at their next venue seasick or choked by flies, bushfire smoke and dust.
H.H. Stephenson's trailblazing 1861/62 squad had barely settled down after their celebrated arrival in Australia when they were off on the road to Beechworth, 200 miles north of Melbourne. Their Cobb and Co coach was drawn all the way by five horses, three in the lead and two behind.
Bushrangers were a real danger. Though none was encountered and Ned Kelly's exploits were years away, Mad Dog Morgan was, however, known in that area at around that time. Maybe they eventually realised the level of the risk involved because England never returned to this quiet, historic little Victorian town.
Wherever the tourists went, the hospitality provided was often of greater note than the cricket played. Champagne breakfasts, bad singing and toasts to monarchs and to everyone who happened to be attending would precede matches. The tourists left with all sorts of gifts and mementos for which they had to show gratitude, then load back somewhere on their coaches.
Matches were played against the odds until Gubby Allen's tour in 1936/37. England might have to dismiss 14, 17 or 21 batsmen twice in two days to add to their list of victories. At Bowral in 1891/92 the locals challenged the English tourists with a 24-man side. It was still not enough to stave off a heavy defeat. Forty years later, one fairly renowned Bowral batsman would have been capable of taking on England's best and making more runs than those 24 put together.
All those weak opponents allowed the English bowlers to gather some extraordinary figures. In that Bowral game, for example, Johnny Briggs' left-arm spinners netted him match figures of 24 for 87.
In those days, although the grounds were regarded as having picturesque settings, the outfields and wickets were often very rough. The most infamous pitch was so dusty that a ball from a slow bowler stopped before reaching the other end of the wicket. This was the match at Stawell in January 1874 on W.G. Grace's first tour of Australia. According to Grace, the journey between Ballarat and Stawell was 'over a bush track, quite undeserving of the name of road'.
On a 'deplorable' ground, Sam Cosstick bowled the locals to one of those three victories of all time by a country side. Grace also ordered that his players reduce their consumption of alcohol before and during games after the loss at Stawell. Cosstick covered nearly as many miles as the tourists did. He also played against them for Ballarat and Warnambool, and went on to become a notable administrator and umpire.
The Doctor noted on his second visit to Australia in 1891/92 that conditions had improved markedly but even by 1970/71 the English visitors did not always appreciate the playing surface on offer. When John Edrich was standing in as captain for Ray Illingworth at Narrogin, 80 miles south of Perth, he inspected the wicket before play. It was bare of grass and looked most uninviting. When asked by someone else looking at the strip what he thought of it, the tough Surrey left-hander suggested, 'It should be dug up'.
'Thanks,' said the stranger. 'I'm the curator!'
That was the match in which Ted Dexter, who was on the tour as a journalist, helped out the injury-depleted side. He flew in to Narrogin with his family, promptly ran himself out for 1 and flew out again.
On the earliest trips the limitations of the rail network meant fixtures were restricted to centres reasonably close to Melbourne and Sydney. Geelong, Victoria's second largest city, and the goldmining cities of Ballarat and Bendigo received regular visits. Jim Lillywhite rated Corio Oval in Geelong very highly during England's visit in 1876/77. 'The Corio Club has the finest ground in the Colony,' claimed the captain of the first ever Test tour.
Almost 100 years to the day after Lillywhite's praise Corio Oval, by then a derelict greyhound track, was demolished. Two years later England's last game in Geelong, at Kardinia Park, was terminated by a riot of small boys. Hundreds of children ran on to the ground with one wicket standing and 10 balls left to be bowled in the match. Were they celebrating the local team reaching three figures or had Derek Randall, in the middle of a rare bowling spell, suggested the match was over with an enthusiastic appeal?
Crowds at country venues have shown they could barrack as colourfully as their city counterparts. Wisden described the gathering at the Western Australian coastal town of Bunbury at the opening match of the 1954/55 tour as 'enthusiastic'. Tom Graveney pointed out, though, that in this 'picnic' match Frank Tyson's direction was so astray on the first evening that he was subject to taunts from well-oiled locals.
More congenial were the fans in the outer at Wagga Wagga in 1932/33. They amused the Nawab of Pataudi by calling him the Nawab of Potato all afternoon. The great medium-pacer, Maurice Tate, made superfluous by the Bodyline tactic, joked that he was being kept for this game when asked why he was not in the Test team. 'They're saving me for Wagga Wagga,' he would whisper out of the side of his mouth.
The only Australian fast bowler to attempt to return a bit of the fiery stuff to Douglas Jardine in 1932/33, Harry Alexander, moved to the central Victorian country town of Euroa after his war service. The man who was once on a Flinders Street tram when he should have been batting for his state became heavily involved in community affairs in Euroa. He helped to organise the ground and arrangements for the visit of Freddie Brown's side in 1950/51. Unfortunately all his work came to very little as unseasonal February rain washed out more than half the match.
Alexander and the people of Euroa had to wait 15 years for the next England team. But they prepared just as enthusiastically and were satisfied that their efforts would be justified by the success of the occasion. This time, though, the November rain was so bad that there was no play at all against Mike Smith's side.
However, the authorities were obviously sympathetic. They scheduled another visit by the Englishmen for January 20, 1971 on the following tour. This time the sun shone throughout. But once again Alexander and the energetic folk of Euroa were to be denied. After the abandonment of the Melbourne Test, another was scheduled for later in the tour instead of the return match against Victoria. That game and the minor fixture at Euroa were consumed by the extra Test.
While the visitors might question the merits of much of the substandard cricket they were forced to endure, for the locals an outstanding performance brought them to the attention of the selectors in the major centres. Charlie 'The Terror' Turner, who eventually claimed 101 Test wickets, first came to the attention of the state selectors after he claimed 17 wickets for Bathurst, the town of his birth, against Alfred Shaw's tourists in December 1881.
Harry Musgrove gained even faster promotion. Following his 109 for Ballarat against the 1884/85 side, he was whisked straight into the Test team. The regular players were on strike, calling for a higher percentage of the gate takings, which caused the selectors to panic and make some rash decisions. Musgrove was batting for Ballarat one day and for his country less than a week later. It was his only Test, but like Cosstick he did make his mark in the game off the field.
Although originally from Sydney, Arthur Chipperfield, like Musgrove and Turner, made his first big impression against English tourists in a country match. Chipperfield took 152 off the Bodyline tourists for Northern New South Wales, a side often close to first-class standard.
Archie MacLaren's 1901/02 tourists conceded 558 runs while taking 15 wickets against West Maitland, and various other individuals registered good performances against the Poms.
My father more than once regaled me with the story of a batsman he saw in his youth. His name was Porter and he came in from the nearby apple orchards of the hamlet of Harcourt to bat for Bendigo against Harold Larwood.
He said Porter only made 30 or 40-odd but twice he hooked the mighty paceman's best and fastest bouncers square for six into the beautiful grandstand at the Queen Elizabeth Oval. He had no interest in pursuing a cricket career in Melbourne so he finished the game and returned to tending his Jonathons.
Australians like to believe they could turn out any 11 cricketers and give the English a run for their money. For every one that might have put Larwood into the grandstand, though, there are XXI or at least XVII others who would have had their heads knocked clean off if they had tried such a shot. They, like the concept of sending English teams on a train or plane to an Australian cricketing outpost, would be pretty close to dead.
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