It was Ides of March, 1877.

James Lillywhite’s Englishmen took on the Combined Team selected from the Colonies of Victoria and New South Wales. That game of cricket, that started at the Melbourne Cricket Ground at one o’clock in front of about a thousand spectators, has gone down in history as the first ever Test match.

If one considers that both Julius Caesar and William Shakespeare were names of First-Class cricketers of yore, it was perhaps in the fitness of things that the epochal match started on this auspicious date. In this case, our Wills and fates did not so contrary run.

The Australians batted first, James Lillywhite set a textbook field. John Selby stood behind the stumps as Ted Pooley, the regular keeper, was in jail in New Zealand because of a betting related fight. (Good old days of the gentlemanly game). James Southerton was at short slip, Allen Hill at cover-point, George Emmett at point, Lillywhite himself peched at short-leg, Tom Armitage at mid-on, Harry Charlwood at deep square leg, Andrew Greenwood at ‘over the bowler’s head’ and the great George Ulyett at long-on.

Alfred Shaw ran in to bowl the first ball to Charles Bannerman.

Test cricket was thus born on March 15, 1877.

If he had been there, perhaps the immortal bard would have reflected:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee .

Text: Arunabha Sengupta

Illustration: Maha