did. Before discussing this eleven it will be well briefly to review

the result of five remarkable test matches played in Australia in the winter of 1895 and 1896 between Stoddart’s eleven and the Australians. Stoddart’s eleven was very good, but nobody could say that at that time it was the best that England could have sent. Grace, Jackson, Gunn, Storer, and Abel might with advantage have taken the places of Humphreys, Brockwell, Philipson, Briggs, and Lockwood; but still it was a good team, and it won three out of the five test matches.

Under any circumstances this must always remain a great feat, for each side possess a great advantage when playing in their own country, but on looking carefully into these five matches as a whole, it must be confessed that Stoddart must have been greatly helped by the selection and captaincy of the Colonists. Giffen’s view of his duties of captain was the very erroneous one that it was essential that he should be bowling at one end nearly the whole time. In the first match he bowled 118 overs, while Turner and Jones were only allowed to bowl 117 overs between them. In the second match he magnanimously did not go on in the first innings on a wet wicket, but made up for it by bowling 23 more overs than anyone else in the second innings, and in the last match he bowled while 236 runs were scored off him, and H. Trumble, who was on all wickets the best bowler in Australia, was only selected to play in one of the matches. Stoddart’s side, however, batted finely, and Richardson proved himself at that time to be far the best bowler in the world.

When they came to England in 1896 they brought Giffen, but wisely made Trott captain, and Hill and Darling showed symptoms of developing into the very high position they now hold, and the whole eleven proved themselves a difficult side to get out. Gregory, Darling, Hill, Iredale, Trott, Giffen, and Donnan all scored a thousand runs in the season, and Trumble, Jones, McKibbin, and Giffen each secured over a hundred wickets, and H. Trumble on all wickets was not excelled by any bowler in the two countries. The eleven played a safe game; there was no McDonnell or Lyons in the side, but they took a lot of getting out, though, as might be supposed in the case of a side where there was no hitter, they were weak on soft wickets.

Such was the situation when the last disastrous visit of Stoddart’s eleven took place in 1897 and 1898, and though the result of this tour is very recent history, it is so important and raises such misgivings for the future that it is well to consider it at some length.

In the first place no eleven has ever left England with so much of their countrymen’s confidence as this eleven of Stoddart’s. A great many thought that it was absolutely the best selection that could have been made. It is easy to be wise after the event, but even now it is not at all certain that the bowling could be improved, and this was the notorious weak spot of the eleven. In another part of this work is given a possible first eleven of England, but this selection is given, as far as the bowlers are concerned, with no great confidence, and the truth must sadly be confessed that unless we mend our bowling ways we shall very likely be defeated in our own country by the Australians in 1899. Up to the end of the first test match Stoddart’s eleven had a blaze of triumph in spite of the abnormal heat which knocked up more than one of our eleven. Stoddart had no doubt the worst of the luck in losing the toss three times in the first four test matches, but, unluckily, what many of us dreaded occurred in the last match--he won the toss and lost the match. MacLaren and Ranjitsinhji batted grandly, Storer, Hayward, and Druce passably, but the rest proved more or less a failure, while on Australian wickets against weak English bowling the batting of Darling and Hill was superb, and that of C. McLeod, Gregory, Iredale, Trumble, and Trott very good. But our team as a whole were not strong enough in batting to make up for our bowling weakness, and in a word the Australians thoroughly outbowled us.

The Australians in the first test match played the bowlers who had performed so well in England in 1896, with the addition of C. McLeod, but in subsequent matches they played Noble and Howell, and these two bowlers have the knack of variety in their bowling, and this, combined with the pace of Jones and the admirable steadiness and break of Trumble, made a combination of bowlers that on good hard wickets has never been surpassed. It is the future that troubles us; where are our bowlers? In old days we could get one first-class bowler a year out of Nottingham alone, but the supply seems to have come to an end; but from somewhere must come some bowlers of variety of pace, break, and head, or the old country must be content to take the lower room. But if 1899 should turn out to be a wet year a very different tale may have to be told.

Taking both countries, and excluding the Manchester match in 1890, abandoned on account of weather, fifty-one test matches have now been played, of which England has won twenty-six, fourteen in Australia and twelve at home, Australia nineteen, of which all but three were in Australia, and six have been drawn.

The leading averages in batting in all the series, in both countries, of test matches from 1880 to 1898 inclusive may prove of interest at this stage, but of course we exclude the players who only played in comparatively few matches, and we limit the number of innings to a minimum of twelve. The averages are as follows:--

+--------------------+---------+-----------+------------+---------+ | | No. of | Times not | | | | Batsmen | Innings | out | Total runs | Average | +--------------------+---------+-----------+------------+---------+ |K. S. Ranjitsinhji | 12 | 2 | 692 | 57·8 | |F. A. Iredale | 18 | 0 | 705 | 39·3 | |C. Hill | 12 | 0 | 467 | 38·11 | |A. Shrewsbury | 36 | 4 | 1,277 | 35·17 | |A. E. Stoddart | 28 | 2 | 996 | 35·16 | |A. C. MacLaren | 22 | 2 | 769 | 34·16 | |A. G. Steel | 17 | 3 | 586 | 34·8 | |W. G. Grace | 32 | 4 | 1,079 | 33·23 | |W. L. Murdoch | 27 | 3 | 885 | 32·21 | +--------------------+---------+-----------+------------+---------+

Like all tables of averages the above is misleading. Players like Grace, Murdoch, and Shrewsbury played in the days when runs were not so easily got, and their performances may rank on a par with those of MacLaren, Ranjitsinhji, and Hill, and, of course, there have been many innings played against equally good bowling, but not in matches of England _v_ Australia. No innings of greater merit has, however, been played than Murdoch’s innings of 153 not out against England at the Oval in 1880.

With regard to the merits of the English and Australian bowlers, we think there are few English cricketers who would deny that Spofforth is the best bowler ever seen on English grounds, at any rate in modern times, and yet the statistics show that he is not at the head of the average list.

The following is the list of the first twelve bowlers:--

+--------------+-------+------+---------+---------+ | | Balls | Runs | Wickets | Average | +--------------+-------+------+---------+---------+ |Lohmann | 2,861 | 875| 61 | 14 | |Peel | 4,891 | 1,715| 101 | 16 | |Turner | 4,423 | 1,510| 84 | 17 | |Spofforth | 4,137 | 1,714| 93 | 18 | |Boyle | 1,620 | 598| 30 | 19 | |Briggs | 3,403 | 1,569| 76 | 20 | |Hearne | 1,732 | 761| 35 | 20 | |Palmer | 4,463 | 1,678| 78 | 21 | |Richardson | 4,017 | 2,221| 88 | 25 | |Giffen | 5,962 | 2,793| 103 | 26 | |Trumble | 2,723 | 1,213| 47 | 26 | |Jones | 1,537 | 850| 29 | 29 | +--------------+-------+------+---------+---------+

Spofforth, although fourth only in the above table, was on the whole the greatest bowler, for many of his great feats were performed in other almost as important matches, and it must also be remembered that he never bowled for maidens; but the figures of Peel, who in test matches has bowled more balls than anybody, come up remarkably well, and considering the number of balls he bowled his record is an extraordinary one.

In addition to Spofforth, the Australians have had a wonderfully good lot of bowlers: Palmer, Garrett, Boyle, Allan, Evans, G. Giffen, and since 1886--when this chapter was first written--Turner, Ferris, and H. Trumble, and, as far as can be gathered from the disastrous tour of Mr. Stoddart’s eleven in 1897–8, Noble, Howell, and Jones. Although the previous remarks about Spofforth were written before Turner made such a wonderful record on our English grounds, we still think Spofforth the best of all the bowlers. It appears extraordinary at first sight that a country whose whole population does not exceed that of London should in the course of a few years have been able to develop such exceptional talent. We believe, however, that Australia will always possess excellent bowlers, for the following reason. In Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, the chief nurseries of Australian cricket, the grounds are so excellent, and usually so hard and fast, that no bowler can possibly expect the slightest amount of success unless he possesses some peculiarity of style or action, pace or power, over the ball; mere pace and accuracy are of no avail. On the hardest and best wickets it must be laid down as an axiom that bowlers with change of pace and turn must form the bowling backbone of the future best eleven, and these qualities the young Australian cultivates with greater success than the English. In England the conditions are different, as, by reason of our variable climate, naturally weak bowling often becomes most effective. Young Australian bowlers have also ample opportunity for gaining experience and developing their skill, as there is in the colonies a very great dearth of the professional element. Members of the same club have to rely for their batting practice on the bowling of one another, and their bowlers come to acquire some of the peculiarities above mentioned that will strike terror into the hearts of their opponents in the next tie of the cup contests. These cup contests in Australia are an excellent institution, as professionalism is barred. They produce the greatest interest and excitement, and each club does its utmost to secure the much-coveted distinction of being premier club for the season. The Australian climate is a great aid to bowling and fielding. Its warmth and mildness prevent the rheumatic affections that so often attack the arms and shoulders of our players, and the Australians consequently retain their suppleness of limb and activity of youth longer than their English cousins. Nothing illustrates this better than the prevalence of good throwing amongst Australian fieldsmen. The every-day sight on our own grounds of a man who has thrown his arm out and can do nothing but jerk is almost unknown in Australia; even colonials who have passed their cricket prime and have reached the age of thirty-eight or forty can still throw with much the same dash as of old. In our county teams we find a woeful deficiency in this essential to good fielding; the cold and damp of our northern climate having penetrated into the bones and created a chronic and incurable stiffness.

One occasionally hears a really good cricket story in Australia. The following was vouched for as a fact by several leading members of Australian cricket, and was told me as illustrative of the skill and dash of some great fieldsman whom I have never had the good fortune to meet. This man was standing coverpoint one day--his usual place in the field. He was marvellously quick, sometimes indeed his returns were so smart that none could tell whether he had used his right or left arm. He was, however, apt at times to be sleepy and inattentive to the game. On one occasion he was in this state, and just as the bowler started to bowl he noticed his sleepy coverpoint standing looking on the ground with his back to the wickets. ‘Hulloa, there, wake up!’ shouted he. Quick as lightning turned the coverpoint, and seeing something dark dashing past him made a dart, and caught, not the ball as he had thought, but a swallow. Talk of Royle or Briggs after that!

Writing at the close of Mr. Stoddart’s disastrous tour, it must be said that if the Australians bring over a representative team in 1899 it will be looked forward to with the keenest interest. The 1896 lot did very well, and it remains to be seen whether in 1899, in matches limited to three days and on English wickets, our visitors can pull off the rubber in the three test matches. If they do they will receive the hearty congratulations of every true English cricketer; and at the present time of writing it looks as if they had a great chance of so doing, but if they are wise they will try and unearth another batsman of the stamp of McDonnell or Lyons.