Part 6 of an exquisitely detailed biography of Billy Midwinter by Pradip Dhole. The travelling cricketer played four Test matches for England, sandwiched between eight Tests Australia and holds a unique place in cricket history as the only cricketer to have played for both Australia and England in Test Matches against each other
Part 1
Part2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
The County of Grace
Midwinter’s first match under Gloucestershire colours is worth examining in some detail. The match in question was billed as being an encounter between England and Gloucestershire, and was to be a 3-day fixture played at The Oval from 26 Jul 1877. Alfred “Bunny” Lucas was leading the England team while WG Grace was at the helm of the Gloucestershire line-up. Winning the toss, WG put the opposition in. Though populated by some of the best players of the day, the fall of wickets column soon showed 1/8, 2/9, and 3/17, with Henry Jupp (5), Dr Joseph Cotterill (1), and Ephraim Lockwood (5) back in the pavilion.
England batted 94.2 (4-ball) overs but could muster only 83 runs while losing all their wickets. Bowling in tandem for most of the innings, Billy Midwinter (7/35) and skipper WG Grace (3/37) captured all the wickets, with EM Grace, with the “Coroner,” bowling 8 overs for 7 runs. Only two batsmen made any contributions worth mentioning: skipper Lucas (24, at the top of the order), and Arthur Shrewsbury (25 from # 5). The only other man in double figures was Frank Penn (11) of Kent.
Gloucestershire were themselves shot out for 78 in the 55th over, with the extended Grace family scoring the bulk of the runs: skipper WG (9), cousin Walter Gilbert (19), GF (27*, the top score of the innings), and EM (10). There was no one else in double figures. Midwinter contributed only 1 run to the total. Derbyshire left-arm pace bowler William Mycroft (6/21) and the Surrey slow left-arm orthodox bowler Edward Barratt (4/33) took all the wickets.
With a 5-run advantage on the 1st innings, England scored 123 all out in the 2nd innings. Lockwood (41) and Cotterill (23) shared a 2nd wicket stand of 39 runs, the highest of the innings. Spearheading the attack again, Midwinter and WG had identical figures (4/46), although the professional cricketer, Midwinter, bowled almost 24 overs more. That left Gloucestershire a winning target of 129 runs in the last innings. They got there for the loss of 5 wickets, with the opening pair of WG (31) and Gilbert (25) putting on 57 runs for the 1st wicket. Frank Townsend (41*) then saw his team home and Midwinter was not required to bat again as the match ended on the second day.
WG Grace, a shrewd judge of the capabilities of a cricketer, soon realised that Billy Midwinter’s characteristically aggressive batting style would not always be suitable to the rigors of County cricket. The legend took the young man in hand and passed on some sage advice about the value of tempering one’s belligerent instincts to suit the situation of the game. The quiet words seemed to have borne fruit as was evident in the return match against Yorkshire at Clifton from 16 Aug 1877.
Having won the toss for Yorkshire, Ephraim Lockwood decided to bat first on a doubtful surface. The 5th wicket fell at the total of 65, and the next 5 wickets all fell at the total of 67, leaving the Yorkshiremen red in the face with a total of 67 all out from 75 (4-ball) overs. Although Midwinter had been pressed into the attack with the new ball alongside himself by WG, the professional could not take any wickets. WG himself (5/31) and the Oxford University alumnus, Robert Miles (4/10 with his slow left-arm orthodox offerings) cleaned up the Yorkshire innings.
Given the uncertain nature of the wicket, it was imperative for the home side to proceed with caution. Opening the batting with skipper WG, elder brother EM was dismissed without scoring, the scorecard showing 1/0. Midwinter arrived at the crease and helped WG (71) to add 103 runs for the 2nd wicket, himself scoring a solid 68 in 4 patient hours of batting, his highest individual first-class score up to that time. Another Grace, GF, contributed 31 to the ultimate total of 228 all out. Tom Emmett, the Yorkshire left-arm round-arm bowler (8/46) was in his elements on the track.
Not to be cowed down by the turn of events, Yorkshire made a positive statement with a 2nd innings total of 260 all out, the highest of the match so far. Skipper Lockwood (82) was the star of the innings as WG (4/88) and Miles (5/88) again disposed of all the wickets. Gloucestershire won the match by 9 wickets, scoring 101/1 in the 48th overs, with EM Grace (53*) and brother GF Grace (43*) both contributing strongly with the bat.
The Australians
A full 10 years were to pass after the first ever team of Australian cricketers had toured England under the leadership of Charles Lawrence in 1868, having in its ranks some of the most talented indigenous Australian players, before the first representative team of white Australian players made the trip to England. The year was 1878, and the prime mover of the enterprise was the Victorian, John Conway, who, along with David Gregory of New South Wales, selected a group of eleven players for the trip. Apart from the skipper, New South Wales was represented by Fred Spofforth, Billy Murdoch, Tom Garrett, and the brothers Bannerman, Charles and Alec.
The first Australian cricket team comprising white players in England (1878)
(Back Row: L to R): John Conway (Manager), George Bailey, William Gibbes (Assistant Manager & Secretary), Frank Allan
(Middle Row: L to R): Jack Blackham, Billy Murdoch, Tom Horan, David Gregory (Captain), Alec Bannerman, Fred Spofforth
(Front Row: L to R): Tom Garrett, Charles Bannerman, Harry Boyle.
The Victoria contingent comprised Frank Allan, Tom Horan, Jack Blackham, and Harry Boyle. The lone Tasmanian in the group was George Bailey, a Hobart banker, born in Ceylon, where he had learnt much of his cricket, before honing his skills at English public schools. There had been an arrangement with Billy Midwinter, already in England where he was fulfilling his professional contract with Gloucestershire, that he would assist the touring Australians when he was able, and would return to Australia with the tourists, having been promised benefit matches at Sydney and Melbourne if he accompanied the tourists back home.
Public notification of the projected tour to England was to be seen in an item appearing in the Evening Journal (Adelaide) of 7 Aug 1877, which announced that: “arrangements have been completed for sending a team of Australian cricketers home to England to play there during the season 1878.”
The sepia-tinted image reproduced above, courtesy the website: https://www.portrait.gov.au/stories/ was the official team photograph of the 1878 Australians in England, and was the handiwork of the renowned London studio of Andrew and George Taylor, in business in east London since 1866. The proprietors of the photographic business were in the habit of proclaiming their credentials quite proudly as follows: “A & G Taylor, Photographers to the Queen and their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales”.
Diversion on WG
A word about the great WG Grace, often regarded as being the father of English cricket, may be in order here. The archives show him to have played first-class cricket from 1865, when he was about 17 years of age, till 1908, when he would have been a venerable senior citizen of 60 years. However, external circumstances had very nearly combined to curtail the career of this phenomenon of English cricket. In the autumn of 1877, the great man had suffered a serious shooting accident that had very nearly deprived him of the sight of one eye. As a consequence of the injury, Grace had seriously considered retiring from cricket before the commencement of the 1878 summer season. By Divine providence, he had recovered sufficiently to feel confident of venturing out on the cricket field again, and had been able to play 33 games in the season, 24 of them being of first-class status, as usual fulfilling many roles.
The 1878 Australian tourists in England played a total of 42 matches on the tour, of which 15 were of first-class status. Perhaps the most memorable of these games was the second match of the tour, a first-class fixture played at Lord’s against the Marylebone Cricket Club and Ground, scheduled for 3 days beginning on 27 May 1878. WG Grace himself was in charge of the MCC team while the Australians, under Dave Gregory, rested ‘keeper Blackham, who was indisposed, entrusting the ‘keeping duties to Billy Murdoch, an efficient wicketkeeper-batsman in his own right. The local media had been full of reports of inclement weather affecting several of the cricket fixtures of the season 1878.
Most Remarkable of Matches Ever
The Essential Wisden: An Anthology of 150 Years of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, edited by John Stern and Marcus Williams, has this to say about the game: “This, one of the most remarkable matches ever played at Lord’s, was commenced at three minutes past 12, and concluded at 20 minutes past six the same day. Only 128 overs and two balls were bowled, and but 101 runs, from the bat, scored in the match…” The Globe, a London newspaper, commented: “The eleven chosen (by the MCC) was as good a one as could be found to represent London and England, and probably nearly as good as the Club has ever turned out.”
In plain terms, then, and shorn of all rhetoric, WG won the toss and opted to bat first on a damp wicket drying out in the relatively weak sun after a night of heavy rains, coming out himself in the company of AN “Monkey” Hornby. Thereafter, the fall of wickets was as follows: 1/4, 2/5, 3/27, 4/29, and 5/30. The next 4 wickets all fell at the total of 31, with the innings being concluded at 33 all out in 28.3 (4-ball) overs. Opener Hornby (19) was the only man in double figures, and there were 6 individual ducks in the innings. According to the match notes, Fred ‘ The Demon’ Spofforth, coming on as first change bowler, had figures of 5.3 -3 - 4 – 6, in other words, 6 wickets taken for 4 runs conceded. These figures included a hat-trick, as mentioned below. Wisden, however, had this to say: “The aforesaid Australian bowler (Spofforth) made a distinct mark in the bowling of the match by delivering six overs (less one ball) for 14 runs and six wickets – three bowled,” an example of even the venerable Homer nodding, shall we say?
In his very interesting book Never A Gentlemen’s Game, author Malcolm Knox supplies some more details of Spofforth’s bowling feats of the 1st innings: “He gave up two runs in his first over, but in his next five, of four balls each, he took six wickets for two runs. He bowled Hornby in his second over and Webbe in his third. In the first three balls of his fifth over, he caught and bowled Flowers, bowled Hearne, and had Shaw stumped (the hat-trick). Next over, Murdoch ended the innings by stumping Vernon.”
Knox quotes the following remark by The Argus: “The rush to the gate to view the wonderful Australians as they reached the pavilion was something to be remembered. The public were fairly stunned by the performance.” The MCC & Ground team, led by the great WG Grace himself and containing the cream of contemporary English batting, had been dismissed for a mere 33 runs, almost in the twinkle of an eye.
The Australians themselves made very heavy weather of their 1st innings total of 41 all out, reaching there in the 67th over. The only man in double figures was Midwinter, and he barely got there, scoring only 10 runs. The Nottinghamshire pair of Alfred Shaw (5/10 from his 33.2 overs) and Fred Morley (5/31 from his 33 overs) bowled unchanged and wreaked havoc with the Australian batting.
The MCC, containing some of the finest players of the land, were all at sea in their 2nd innings on this, their own backyard, as it were. Hornby suffered a painful injury on his individual score of 1, the team score then being 4. As Wisden said, “a ball bowled by Spofforth painfully hurt and prostrated Hornby (in the midriff, as reported), compelling him to retire.” Hornby did return later in the innings with WG as his runner, but the 7th wicket had fallen by then, and he was unable to add to his individual score of 1.
The dismissal of WG for a second ball duck in the 2nd innings was, perhaps, the most noted event of the innings. The Argus called it “the most extraordinary bowling triumph ever witnessed in a great match. The first ball from Spofforth completely puzzled the great batsman, and his uncertainty was quite apparent to the spectators. The Sydneyite’s second, a beautiful break-back, just lifted the bails, and a perfect storm of applause, lasting till the Leviathan reached the pavilion, greeted the bowler.” The air-borne bail had reportedly flown about 30 yards!
In their 2nd innings, after the 5th wicket of the MCC & Ground had fallen at 16, the next four wickets all fell at the total of 17 runs. The home side was finally dismissed for 19 off the first ball of their 18th over. In keeping with the trend of the game, there was only one man in double figures, Wilfred Flowers of Nottinghamshire (11). Spofforth (4/16 from his 9 overs) and Boyle (6 wickets for 3 runs) ran through the innings again to leave it in tatters. The home 2nd innings began at about 3:57 PM and was over by 4:50 PM.
The winning target for the visiting team in the 4th innings of the match was a mere 12 runs. There was to be more drama as Australia lost the wicket of opener Charles Bannerman to Alfred Shaw for 1, with Shaw shattering the batsman’s stumps. The remaining 11 runs came from the bats of Midwinter (4*) and Tom Horan (7*) to leave the Australians victorious by 9 wickets.
In the words of AG Steel, co-author along with RH Lyttelton of the book Cricket, part of The Badminton Library, and published by Longmans, Green & Co from London in 1888, “Not until Monday, May 27, 1878, did the English public take any real interest in Australian cricket, though in 1877 in their own country, the Australians had defeated Lillywhite’s eleven on even terms. Prior to this date four English teams had visited Australia, but their doings, though recorded in the press, did not interest the cricket community at home. The Australian players met with in the Colonies were no doubt learning from the English teams they had seen and played against, but the idea that they were up to the standard of English first-class cricket seemed absurd; and to a certain extent this estimate was justified by the records of the English visitors….”
This pathetic loss to the 1878 Australians brought home to the somewhat complacent cricketers of the Home Country the realisation that the colonials had now come a long way in improving their cricketing and strategic skills, and were now in a position to compete with English cricketers as equals, a veritable wake-up call for English cricketers of the time. Punch, the well-known satirical magazine of England celebrated the event by publishing a parody of the poem The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron, in their own way:
“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.”