Part 9 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
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Writing in his book England: The Biography: The Story of English Cricket, author Simon Wilde begins Chapter 2 with: “The England Test team spent much of the first 50 years of its existence in a state of glorious complacency. Despite several series defeats – mainly in faraway Australia when England’s true strength was not fully represented, but also sometimes at home – a deep-seated belief held firm that English cricket was, still, the best. Talent was habitually alienated and squandered because there was a feeling that such waste could be afforded….” Wilde goes on to explain that the poor performance of the early English tourists to Australia can be explained partly by the absence of various meritorious players in the earlier England squads. One important causative factor for players opting out used to be the length of the tours, usually of about 6 months, with the players having to leave English shores by September, and not being able to return much before April of the following year.
The 1881/82 tour
Towards the end of the English summer of 1881, an English team was preparing to undertake the next tour of Australia in the antipodean summer of 1881/82. Scouting around for likely tourists, the 3 selectors, Alfred Shaw, Arthur Shrewsbury, and James Lillywhite Jnr had approached an amateur player from Sussex named Morton Lucas but he declined to tour, finding himself unable to spend so much of time away from his brewery business. Nottinghamshire professional Billy Barnes also opted out of the tour to look after his off-season business as landlord of the Angel Inn of Mansfield Woodhouse. It finally boiled down to a squad of 11 professional cricketers for the tour. There was a twist in the tale, however, when the names of the players for England’s 3rd Test playing tour of Australia were made public. Of the 11 players selected, there was a professional Gloucestershire all-rounder – one William Evans Midwinter, who would be turning out for the first time under the standard of the British Lion.
Arthur Shrewsbury, one of the 4 Nottinghamshire men in the side, was taken ill with a respiratory infection prior to the departure of the team and did not travel to North America. The first leg of the tour involved 5 second-class games in North America, with Lillywhite himself filling in for the absent Shrewsbury. Upon the conclusion of the American section of the tour, 10 members of the England team and their manager James Lillywhite boarded the ss Australia from San Francisco, weighing anchor on Saturday, 22 Oct 1881. It was a longish voyage via Honolulu and Auckland, and the Australia berthed at Sydney Harbour at about 5 o’clock on the evening of Wednesday, 16 Nov/1881. The arrival report of the England team carried by the Goulburn Herald (NSW) of 19 Nov 1881 ended with: “Shrewsbury, who owing to illness was unable to leave London with the team, will probably reach Sydney at the end of the present week.”
There was an interesting sidelight to the voyage, as reported by the Australian Town and Country Journal (NSW) in their 19 Nov 1881 issue: “The voyage of the RMS Australia, Captain Cargill, has been an invariably pleasant one on this occasion, and the fastest on record. Her total time from San Francisco to Sydney was 23 days, 21 hours, 25 minutes; detention at way ports 23 hours and 50 minutes: making a net steaming time of 22 days, 21 hours, (and) 35 minutes – the shortest passage on record….”
The first Test
Saturday, 31 Dec 1881 was to be a significant day in the history of cricket, albeit in an esoteric manner. It was the first day of the 1st Test of the 1881/82 series, to be played at Melbourne. After England had won the toss and chosen to bat first, one member of the English touring team, William ‘Billy’ Evans Midwinter, made a unique mark in the annals of cricket by becoming the only man in history to play Test cricket for Australia against England, and for England against Australia, as exclusive an honour as one could ever dream of achieving.
Between the two teams, there were a total of 10 debutants in the Test match; six for England and 4 for the home team. The English debutants were: Lancastrian Dick Barlow, a right-hand bat and left-arm medium-pace bowler, Yorkshireman Billy Bates, a right-hand batsman and right-arm off-break bowler, Nottinghamshire right-hand batsman Arthur Shrewsbury, later a favourite of WG Grace, and destined to score more than 26,000 first-class runs, another man from Nottinghamshire, William Scotton, a left-hand bat and left-arm fast-medium bowler, Lancastrian wicketkeeper Dick Pilling, and Yorkshireman Edmund ‘Ted’ Peate, a left-handed all-rounder.
Alfred Shaw’s England team in Australia in 1881/82
For the hosts, the newcomers were: Hugh Massie, the right-hand batsman from New South Wales, the champion right-handed all-rounder from South Australia, George Giffen, right-handed all-rounder from New South Wales, Edwin Evans, and Victorian right-hand batsman and leg-break bowler, William Cooper, great grandfather of the latter-day Australian Test player Paul Sheahan.
Alfred Shaw, in his first match as England captain, won the toss for his side and opted to bat first. The last day of 1881 saw England being dismissed for a very respectable total of 294 in the 171st over in front of about 16,500 spectators. There were 3 individual fifties in the innings, from: George Ulyett (87, opening the batting, this being the top score of the innings), John Selby (run out for 55), and Billy Bates (58). Billy Midwinter, for the first time under English colours, contributed 36 runs, and William Scotton (21) became the second man to be run out in the innings. For the hosts, Edwin Evans (3/81) and William Cooper (3/80) captured 3 wickets each.
Australia replied with 320 all out in 237 overs. The edifice of the total was built around a watchful century (124, in just under 4 ½ hours, with 6 boundaries, off 300 balls faced) by Tom Horan. Horan was the 9th man dismissed, at the total of 309, having scored his maiden Test century, this also being his highest first-class score till then. For England, Midwinter, Bates, Emmett, and Ulyett each captured 2 wickets. Under a handicap of 26 runs, England compiled another useful total (308 all out) in the 2nd innings. No individual centuries were registered, but there were a couple of individual fifties, from Selby (70) and Scotton (50*). Midwinter’s contribution to the total was a solitary boundary. Cooper added 6/120 to his match tally of wickets. The Test then ended in a draw with Australia registering a 2nd innings total of 127/3.
In the meanwhile, the tour had been so arranged that the Englishmen had originally been scheduled to sail for the New Zealand leg of their tour on the morning of 4 Jan/1882, a rather inexplicable logistical decision given that the early Test matches in Australia were usually played to a finish, and that 4 Jan/1882 was only the 4th scheduled day of the match. In all fairness, it must also be mentioned in the same breath that although billed as ‘timeless’ games, these were, in reality, usually 4-day affairs. Steven Lynch, in his book Wisden on The Ashes: The Authoritative Story of Cricket’s Greatest Rivalry, says: “The departure of the steamer which was to take Shaw’s team to New Zealand was delayed by the steamship authorities from the morning of 4 January till 3:45 in the afternoon in the hope that this very important match might be concluded.” The general heavy scoring during the game, however, negated the altruistic efforts of the steamship authorities and the Test ended in a draw.
The Second Test
The action then moved on to Sydney. A brochure dedicated to the history and heritage of the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground informs us that the cricket connection of this venue had begun with a Col Henry Bloomfield, first Commander of the 11th North Devonshire Regiment, then stationed at the Victoria Barracks of Sydney. It seems that the enterprising colonel had written to the office of the Colonial Secretaries in 1851 requesting official permission to utilise a stretch of “the sandy, scrubby expanse of land south of the barracks for his soldiers.” The requisite permission having been granted, the soldiers of the regiment had got to work and had cleared and levelled about 25 acres of the sandy and hilly area into a venue fit to be used as a garden, a rifle range, and a cricket ground. With its military connection, it was no surprise that the venue came to be known initially as the Garrison Ground. This was in the period 1851-1852.
Permission was then granted to the New South Wales Cricket Association to use the venue from 1875 onwards, and they renamed it as the Association Cricket Ground of Sydney. Sir Hercules Robinson, then Governor of New South Wales, dedicated the ground formally in August/1876 and appointed the first trio of Trustees for the ground in Richard Driver, William Wilberforce Stephens, and Philip Sheridan. The first officially recognised cricket match was played here on 25 Oct 1877 between the New South Wales Government Printing Office and the Audit Office, the final of the Civil Service Challenge Cup.
The inaugural first-class match played on the Association Cricket Ground (ACG) was between New South Wales and Victoria from 25 Oct 1878. The first Members Pavilion was constructed in the same year. Athletic contests and lawn tennis courts belonging to the Sydney Lawn Tennis Club are laid out on the northern edge of the ACG between 1878 and 1880. A newly built grandstand was inaugurated in 1881 and cycling and Australian Rules football were added to the list of sporting activities on the ground from Aug 1881.
The Association Ground, Sydney, circa 1880s. The old Members Pavilion can be seen in the distance.
The iconic Members Pavilion with the easily recognisable clock tower was constructed in 1886, and the ACG opened its doors to ladies’ cricket in the same year. Baseball and rugby were added to the sports played at the ACG by 1888. It was finally in 1894 that the ACG was formally renamed as the Sydney Cricket Ground, recognised as one of the grandest and most historic sporting venues of Australia.
Big time cricket made its entrance at the ACG when the 2nd Test between Australia and the visiting England team was played here from 17 Feb 1882. This was the 6th Test match in history, and the first ever Test match played at Sydney. The old Members Pavilion was already in place, although the Ladies’ Pavilion would appear later on the ground as would Ned Gregory’s original score-board, which would become operational from 1896.
Spofforth and Alec Bannerman were two prominent absentees form the Australian team-sheet for the 2nd Test at the ACG as Alfred Shaw won the toss again and opted for first strike on Friday, 17 Feb 1882. There were 2 debutants for the home team in Sammy Jones of New South Wales and George Coulthard of Victoria. For the latter, this would be his only Test match as a player.
It may be remembered that Coulthard had made his entry into Test cricket first as an umpire, officiating in the only Test match between Australia and Lord Harris’ England team at Melbourne in Jan/1879. He had then been the epicentre of the infamous Sydney Riot of 8 Feb/1879. The only other man in history to make his Test debut as an umpire first and as a player later would be ‘Paddy’ McShane of Victoria, making his umpiring debut in the 4th Test, Australia versus England at Sydney from 14 Mar/1885, and then finding a place in the Australian Test team as a player in the 5th (and last) Test of the same series against the same opposition at Melbourne from 21 Mar 1885.
A Roses combination of Yorkshireman George Ulyett and Lancastrian Barlow emerged from the pavilion to open the batting for England. The innings lasted for just above 3 hours and ended at 133 runs in 115 overs, the highest partnership of the innings being the 39 runs for the 1st wicket, scored in half an hour. Apart from openers Ulyett (25) and Barlow (31, the top score of the innings), the only other notable contribution was from William Scotton (30). In the absence of Spofforth, ‘Joey’ Palmer (7/68) and Edwin Evans (3/64) combined to bowl through the innings and to take all the wickets. Billy Midwinter’s short innings consisted of only 4 runs.
The first day ended with Australia going in at stumps on 86/1 in their 1st innings after batting for 45 overs. Opener Hugh Massie had been the man dismissed 1 run short of an individual fifty. The 1st wicket had realised 78 runs, and the other opener, ‘keeper Blackham, was batting on 40 at the close, with Edwin Evans (5*) keeping him company. At this point, Australia were only 47 runs behind on the 1st innings and had 9 wickets remaining. The home team were dismissed for 197 the next day, earning a lead of 64 runs. They made very laborious progress in adding 111 runs off almost 150 overs on the second day. Debutant Sammy Jones (37, scored off 210 balls faced, with only 1 boundary) played a very mature and patient knock for the home team. For England, Billy Bates (4/52) and George Ulyett (2/11) were assisted by ‘Ted’ Peate and Billy Midwinter, both of whom captured 1 wicket each.
The England 2nd innings closed at 232, with openers Barlow (62) and Ulyett (67) again giving the side a good start of 122 runs. Arthur Shrewsbury, now restored to full fitness, scored 22 while skipper Shaw contributed 30 runs from the lower order, while Midwinter scored 8. ‘Joey’ Palmer (4/97) added to his 1st innings haul of 7/6, and Tom Garrett took 4/62. Needing 149 runs to win the game, Australia ended the 3rd day at 35/2, with Murdoch, in his 3rd Test as skipper, batting on 2 and Horan at the crease on 6*. Billy Murdoch (49) continued the good work on the 4th day to lead Australia to a total of 169/5, the home side winning the Test by 5 wickets. Debutant Jones had the honour of scoring the winning run. It was Midwinter who finally dismissed skipper Murdoch, his only wicket of the innings. The series now stood at 1-0 to Australia after the 1st Test had ended in a draw.
The Third Test
The Australian victory in the previous Test caused public enthusiasm surrounding the 3rd Test, also scheduled for the ACG, to run very high at Sydney, as evident from the following insert in the Advertising section on Page 2 of The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW) of Friday, 3 Mar 1882:
“ALL ENGLAND v AUSTRALIAN ELEVEN
3RD, 4TH, 6TH & 7Th MARCH 1882
Gates open at 10:30 am
Play to commence at 12 noon
LUNCHEON at 1:30 PM
Play resumes at 2:15 PM
Betting strictly prohibited
By kind permission of Colonel Roberts and the Officers of the
Permanent Forces, the BAND of the NSW ARTILLERY will
Be in attendance each day
Admission 1s, Grandstand 2s 6d
Trams will run to (the) ground every few minutes”
Alfred Shaw won the toss for England a third time and again decided to bat first. In almost no time, the scorecard read 17/3, with Ulyett, Barlow, and Bates back in the pavilion. It was primally an obdurate innings of 82 from Arthur Shrewsbury that shepherded the England 1st innings total to 188 all out in the 141st over in a little less than 4 hours. Midwinter scored a very patient 12 from 65 deliveries faced. ‘Joey’ Palmer (5/46) and Tom Garrett (3/85) shackled the England innings, aided by Harry Boyle (2/18). Things were not much different in the Australian 1st innings, with the total reading a modest 16/3 at one point, with opener Massie (a golden duck), skipper Murdoch (a 34-ball 6), and Horan (a 5-ball 1) all back and cooling their heels in the pavilion. The first day ended with Australia going in at stumps on 24/3 in 23 overs, with the other opener Bannerman batting on 15* and McDonnell yet to score.
The second day’s play began shortly after noon under heavy skies and was severely curtailed by rain, as reported in The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW) of 6 Mar 1882: “...(at) about a quarter past 1 o’clock a brisk shower drove the players to the pavilion…. In a few minutes, however, the rain ceased; but shortly after 3 o’clock it set in steadily, and it was soon evident that play for that day was over. The wind swept across the ground in gusts, bringing with it heavy showers, and in a short time the turf was covered with water. Under these circumstances the continuation of the match was rendered impossible, and the stumps were drawn.”
During the rain-interrupted day, Bannerman progressed from 15* to 59*, and the newspaper report quoted above reveals an almost unbelievable morsel of data: “… was not out, with 59 to his credit, and his score included ten hits for 4 each.” As every student of cricket history knows, Alec Bannerman used to have the reputation of being the stonewaller incarnate in the early days of Test cricket. It seems quite incredible that such a person would so forget himself as to cut loose on an uncertain wicket moistened by showers, and in unreliable light caused by a cloudy sky. But it is one of the charms of cricket history that it occasionally throws up gems like these. Bannerman’s scoring pattern till the end of the day was shown as: 4 2 1 4 4 1 1 4 2 1 1 4 4 1 1 1 4 1 1 1 1 4 3 4 4. It may be remembered that the first 15 of these runs had been scored on the previous day. During the same time, McDonnell scored 72 runs from the other end, but his innings was marred by “two chances which were not accepted.” The day ended with Australia on 146/3.
The third day of the Test, 6 Mar 1882, saw Percy McDonnell complete a century (147, in about 4 hours, facing 285 balls, his maiden first-class and Test century), sharing a 4th wicket partnership of 201 runs with Alec Bannerman (70), off 462 balls faced, which would make this the first double century Test partnership for Australia in Test history, according to the detailed analysis by Charles Davis, who notes the fall of the 4th wicket, that of Bannerman, to have taken place at the total of 217. There is an element of disagreement with the standard cricket archives at this point, the standard scorecard showing the fall of the 4th wicket to have been at the total of 215. This partnership formed the backbone of the innings, which ended at 262 all out in 172 overs, with none of the other batsmen registering double figures. For England, ‘Ted’ Peate (5/43), Billy Bates (3/67), and Billy Midwinter (2/75 in his 62 overs, the most by any English bowler in the innings) took all the wickets.
England began their 2nd innings with a deficit of 74 runs, and when their 7th wicket went down at the total of 73, they had still not wiped off the 1st innings shortfall. Midwinter contributed 10 runs to the total. Shrewsbury (47, the top score of the innings) then added 34 runs for the 9th wicket with ‘keeper Dick Pilling (23), and then added a further 21 runs for the 10th wicket with Peate (8) to bring the England total up to 134 all out in the 81st over. Palmer (4/44) and Garrett (6/78) took all the wickets for Australia, adding to their hauls of the 1st innings.
The home team now needed 61 runs in the final innings to win the Test match. Australia lost openers Massie (9), Bannerman (14), skipper Murdoch (4), and McDonnell (9) in the process, with Midwinter taking 2 catches. Peate (3/15) had very nearly set the cat among the pigeons. There was relief in the Australian camp when the final score reached 64/4 and they won the Test by 6 wickets. The series now stood at 2-0 with a draw in the 1st Test, and Australia were in an unassailable position in the series with one more match to play.
The fourth Test
It was back to Melbourne for the 4th and last Test of the series from Monday, 10 Mar 1882. The Australasian commented that “it would be well if the public was not misled by advertisements to the effect that such and such a match will be positively played out.” The words were to prove prophetic with respect to the 4th Test. Shaw won the toss again for England, making a clean sweep with the coin in the series, and becoming the first skipper in Test history to achieve this particular feat. As they had done in the three previous Tests of the series, England opted for first strike.
A batting master-class by George Ulyett from the top of the batting order (149, his maiden Test century, with 13 boundaries, scored in just short of 3 ½ hours, off 220 balls faced) propelled England to a 1st innings total of 309 in the 160th over. In the process, Ulyett became only the second Englishman to score a Test century after WG Grace’s 152 in the Test at The Oval in 1880, and the first Englishman to register a Test century in Australia. The century also took Ulyett past the career landmarks of 500 Test runs and 7,500 first-class runs. Midwinter contributed 21 runs to the total. Garrett (5/80) was the most successful bowler. Spofforth, brought in for this Test, disappointed both his team and his many fans with very uncharacteristic figures of 1/92.
Although there were no individual centuries in the Australia reply of 300 all out in the 164th over, there were some ‘meaty’ contributions in the batting card. Opening the batting, skipper Billy Murdoch led the way with an innings of 85. Continuing his from the previous Test, McDonnell scored 52. There were 2 scores in the 30s, from opener Bannerman (37) and bowler Palmer (32). Bates (3/49) and Midwinter (4/81, the highest wicket-taker in the innings) carried the English bowling.
Most of the 3rd day’s play was occupied by a robust show from the English batsmen in their 2nd innings, with opener Ulyett (64) again taking the lead in this respect. Barlow (run out for 56), Selby (48*), and Bates (52*) took the English stumps score at the end of the 3rd day to a very healthy 234/4. Unfortunately, the 4th day’s play was completely washed out resulting in another draw.
The weather, then, had the last say with respect to the match, and The Sydney Morning Herald of 15 Mar 1882 reported: “…Rain commenced before 11 o’clock and continued steadily till 3, when the weather cleared, but the ground was wet and spongy. Outside the members in the pavilion, there were not half-a-dozen persons on the ground.” The series therefore ended with 2 draws, both at Melbourne, and 2 victories to Australia, both at Sydney.
In his match report about the 4th Test at Melbourne, Bill Frindall, ‘the Bearded Wonder’ mentions the following highlights in his book The Wisden Book of Test Cricket, 1877 – 1977:
This was the last drawn Test match played in Australia till 1946/47
Ulyett’s 149 was the first Test century by an English player in Australia, and the 149 was the highest individual score by an English batsman on the first day of a Test in Australia until Bob Barber’s 185 in the 1965/66 series.
Divided Loyalties
The inconclusive end of the 4th Test at Melbourne during the 1881/82 series brought the Test career of Billy Midwinter under England colours to a close. Midwinter’s chameleon-like propensity for changing colours with respect to cricketing allegiance was not taken to very kindly by the Australian public in general and by the media in particular. The Bulletin made this comment in 1882: “Midwinter, who is an Englishman in Australia, and an Australian in England, has decided to permanently settle in Australia. Sandhurst is to be the favoured spot.”
In an article appearing in the Bendigo Advertiser of 13 Jul 2013 under the title Special Report: Bendigo’s Ashes Legacy, Part 5 – Billy ‘Mid’ Midwinter had divided loyalties, author Peter MacIver says: “In a country where a national identity was partially being created through the Australian Eleven, it is understandable that many were annoyed by Midwinter’s seeming indecision, or (his) pursuit of money in playing for both England and Australia. It is equally understandable that Midwinter would seek to make a decent living from a sport where he had a limited playing life. This is the age after all where amateurs made fortunes in the form of expenses, while professional players were paid poorly, looked down upon and often had short, hard lives.”