Test matches in the 19th century (1884 to 1889) - Definition and Overview

Part of a series on test matches, this article is preceded by matches to 1883 and followed by matches from 1890 to 1900.

Test matches in the 19th century were somewhat different affairs than what they are today. Many of them were not designated as Test matches for many years afterwards, and it is possible that some Test players never knew they had played in a Test.

Before 1888 there had been 26 Test matches, all between England and Australia. England had won 13 of them, Australia 9, with 4 draws.

England played in all the tests in the 19th century. These were mostly against Australia, though a few were against what tended to be a very weak South African XI.

By the end of the 19th century, 64 Test matches had been played. Whilst the great England v. Australia matches towards the end of the century were recognised as Tests at the time, the classification of many of the games listed below as Tests only happened much later. Some of the games, especially those involving South Africa, were between a very weak South African squad and a not particularly representative England team. By 1900 South Africa had played 8 games, and lost them all to England. Meanwhile, England had faced Australia 56 times, winning 26, losing 20, and drawing 10. Additionally, one game was abandoned without a ball being bowled because of rain.

English summer of 1884

In the first day of 1884, Billy Murdoch's Australians had the better of a draw against Monkey Hornby's English eleven. Lord Harris returned to lead England in the other two Tests. England won the second Test, which was the first Test to be played at Lord's by a wide margin. During the second Test, the Australian captain became the first substitute fielder to take a catch in Test cricket - whilst fielding to help out England after Grace suffered a finger injury!

The laws of cricket in did not permit declarations until 1889. So in the third game, which was scheduled for three days, Australia made 551. Billy Murdoch alone scored 211, Test cricket's first double century, as Australia, and England's best bowler in the innings was Lyttelton with 4 for 19. Lyttelton was the wicket-keeper (Grace kept wicket when Lyttelton bowled), as all 11 Englishmen bowled. The first time this has happened in a Test match. England struggled to 181 for 8, before a furious Walter Read, miffed at batting at number 10, thrashed 117 off 155 balls in 113 minutes as England recovered to 346. The follow-on was enforced as a matter of routine, but England only got to 85 for 2 in the 26 overs of play that remained before the game ended as a draw. England won the series 1-0.

Australia in England 1884. Match length: 3 days. Balls per over: 4. Series result: England won 1-0.

Lillywhite, Shaw and Shrewsbury's second tour 1884/5

Lillywhite, Shaw and Shrewsbury set out on their second tour in 1884/5 with a side Shaw, when writing in 1901, considered the best ever to have left England. Lillywhite again confined himself to managing and umpiring. The tour was marred by disputes over umpiring and money.

The Australian touring team of 1884 contested the first Test match, losing by 8 wickets. This was the first Test match played at the Adelaide Oval. The English and Australian side disputed the division of the takings. The South Australia Cricket Association intervened, and successfully mediated, but England still felt hard done by. The Australians also objected to Lillywhite umpiring. It is not clear why (Lillywhite had controversially given a Victorian "not out" for a good lbw shout from Shaw in the controversial 1881/2 game against them. So it could have been because of match-fixing allegations, though nothing in this regard has ever been proven.) Two local umpires were used for the match, but did not excel themselves for either side. There were many complaints that the Englishmen put pressure on them by over-appealing (another bad cricketing practice that is still alive and well).

However, for the second Test match they demanded 50% of gate receipts, but were turned down. The Australian side therefore showed 11 changes, and JM Blackham's run of playing in the first 17 Tests came to an end. Lillywhite was allowed to umpire this Test, but it was the last time he was allowed to do so. By the end of the second Test, a weakened Australia were 2-0 down in the series.

Back to fuller strength, they recovered to level the series at 2-2 before losing the last Test. In the fifth Test, deputy umpires had to be found to replace umpire Hodges when he refused to stand after tea on the third day because of England's complaints about his decisions. But England were too good and took the series 3-2.

England in Australia 1884/5. Match length: Timeless. Balls per over: 4. Series result: England won 3-2.

The English summer of 1886

Lancashire County Cricket Club, the ground authority at Old Trafford originally selected their captain Monkey Hornby to captain England. However, Hornby injured his leg, and Allan Steel was chosen to captain England in his stead. England, led by Allan Steel easily whitewashed Australia. England were a strong team, and the Australian team was still riven by discord missing Murdoch, Horan, McDonnell, Bannerman and Massie. The highlights of the series were Arthur Shrewsbury's 164 in the second Test, a then English-record Test score, and WG Grace's innings of 170 in the third Test to better it. The Oval Test also saw Walter Read make 94 and William Scotton make a painful 34 in three and three-quarter hours. This prompted the London magazine Punch to print the following parody on Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

Block, block, block

At the foot of thy wicket, O Scotton!

And I would that my tongue would utter

My boredom. You won't put the pot on!

Oh, nice for the bowler, my boy,

That each ball like a barndoor you play!

Oh, nice for yourself, I suppose,

That you stick at the wicket all day!

And the clock's slow hands go on,

And you still keep up your sticks;

But oh! for the lift of a smiting hand,

And the sound of a swipe for six!

Block, block, block,

At the foot of thy wicket, ah do!

But one hour of Grace or Walter Read

Were worth a week of you!

Australia in England 1886. Match length: 3 days. Balls per over: 4. Series result: England won 3-0.

Lillywhite, Shaw and Shrewsbury's third tour 1886/7

Lillywhite, Shaw and Shrewsbury got together for a third time in 1886, though Lillywhite, and Shaw, after whom the English XI were named, were too old to play much themselves. Shaw’s side also got a reputation of playing slow, and therefore unattractive cricket, and the games were poorly promoted. They were poorly attended too.

In the first Test, the Australian captain Percy McDonnell became the first captain to invite the opposition to bat on winning the toss in a Test match. Turner and Ferris bowled unchanged throughout their first innings at Test level to dismiss Shaw's Team for 45, what was England's lowest score until 1994. The England team was not a particularly strong one. Six of the players were from Nottinghamshire, the county of the organisers, Shaw and Shrewsbury. Australia only made 119 in their first innings, and England's 184 in their second left them needed 111 to win. Thanks to 6 for 28, however, England dismissed Australia for 97 to win by 13 runs.

England won the second Test comfortably by 71 runs, to run up six consecutive victories against the Aussies. In the second Test, owing to injury to Barnes, the hero of the last Test, Reginald Wood, a Lancastrian now based in Melbourne was called upon to play. Barnes had injured his hand after hitting it against a wall: he had aimed a punch at the Australian captain, and McDonnell had ducked out the way. Wood's Test career consisted of coming in at number 10 and scoring 6 and 0. He did not bowl or take a catch. He played only 11 other first-class games. In this match, Billy Gunn both played for England and deputised as an umpire when one of the appointed umpires was absent on the final morning and Charlie Turner became the third man to take a catch as a substitute for the opposing Test side.

A putative third Test was hoped for at the East Melbourne ground, but the bitterness that divided Australian cricket at the time meant that the Sydney players would not have played.

England in Australia 1886/7. Match length: Timeless. Balls per over: 4. Series result: England win 2-0.

England v Australia 1887/8

There still was no formal organisation of international tours, with any promoter free to try to put together a touring side. However, for ten years, only one team had toured for any one Australian summer. In 1887/8 this changed. Lillywhite, Shaw and Shrewsbury put together what was to turn out to be not only their last professional tour, but the last English tour led by a professional for sixty-seven years. Their team was invited to Australia by Sydney, and Shaw himself did not tour, but stayed at home to put together a football side that played rugby union and Victorian rules (now known as Australian rules) football in Australia after the cricket tour. The tour was a financial disaster, with Melbourne Cricket Club and Lillywhite, Shaw and Shrewsbury well out of pocket. Lillywhite defaulted on his debt. To boost the status of Shaw's XI, an amateur, Aubrey Smith was invited to captain their team.

At the same time Lord Hawke, as he was soon to be, was invited by Sydney to tour with a team comprising amateurs. However, Hawke had to return to England at the start of the tour as his father had died, leaving George Vernon to captain the side in his stead.

Both teams played "Combined Australia" sides in matches that are not accorded Test match status. They did get together to form one united England side in one Test, for which Walter Read was selected as captain. This was undoubtedly a strong team, though games between stronger representative sides that are not regarded as tests were also played. In a low scoring game played in wet weather, England won well, dismissing Australia for 42 and 82 to win by 126 runs.

England in Australia 1887/8. Match length: Timeless. Balls per over: 4. One-off Test. Result: England won.

English summer of 1888

The legendary WG Grace captained England for the first time in the Second Test at the Oval in 1888.

Australia toured with their strongest side since 1882 and started with a long-awaited victory. In a low-scoring series, seven of the ten completed innings were completed for 100 or fewer. In the first Test, England only needed 124 runs to win after getting 53 in response to Australia's 116 and 60, on a poor pitch at Lord's, but despite WG Grace's admirable 24, fell 61 runs short. This was Australia's first victory in England since the Test that started the Ashes legend 6 years before.

For the second Test, Surrey County Cricket Club, the ground authority, chose the legendary WG Grace as their captain. As a cricketer Grace was reckoned above those earlier greats, Alfred Mynn and George Parr, and it is probably more to do with the way captains were chosen in the 19th century (with away team's captains being chosen by their promoters, home team's captains chosen by the home ground authority, and deference shown to those with titles, such as Lord Harris) that Grace had not captained England sooner than his forty-first year. The England team included five Surrey players.

Although there was nothing wrong with the Oval wicket, Australia collapsed to 80 all out. Thanks to a 112 stand for the fifth wicket between Abel and Barnes, England reached 317, only for Australia to collapse again, this time to 100 to lose by an innings and 137 runs.

In the third Test, England batted first on a pitch dead after recent rain to reach 172. Australia, who had the misfortune to bat on a stickier wicket, were dismissed for 81 and from 7 for 6 recovered to 70 all out, but that still equated to a further innings defeat.

Australia in England 1888. Match length: 3 days. Balls per over: 4. Series result: England won 2-1.

South Africa's first tests 1888/9

These games, where a not particularly strong English touring team, that Altham compared to a weak English county, played an extremely weak nascent South African team were not recognised as tests by England at the time. Wisden's Cricketers Almanack noted that "it was never intended, or considered necessary, to take out a representative English team for a first trip to the Cape". The England team did, however, include some stars such as Briggs and Abel, and George Ulyett, who replaced a player who had to return from South Africa due to a family bereavement.

Although the English team is said not to have paid its expenses, it was otherwise financially successful. The cricketers were warmly welcomed. England were led by Aubrey Smith, who became the most widely-known of England's cricket captains as a result of become a "B" list Hollywood star. They played all their matches, except the two that later came to be regarded as Test matches, against odds, and lost some of them too! Of the 19 games they played, they won 13, including the 2 that later became recognised as Test matches, losing 4 and abandoning 2.

In the first Test, England beat South Africa on matting by 8 wickets by 3.30pm on the second day.

Monty Bowden became England's youngest ever Test captain aged 23 in the Second Test, replacing an injured Smith. England scored 292 and then dismissed South Africa for 47 and 43 to record a comprehensive victory. Bowden died 3 years later after being trampled by his own oxen after falling from his cart (he had stayed in South Africa), possibly as a result of an epileptic fit, may not have known he ever played Test cricket. It is said that his body, which was taken to Umtali hospital, had to be protected from marauding lions before being interred in a coffin made from old whiskey cases.

England in South Africa 1888/9. Match length: 3 days. Balls per over: 4. Series result: England win 2-0.

Continued on: Test matches in the 19th century (1890 to 1900)

See also

• Test matches in the 19th century (to 1883)
• Test matches (1900-1914)
• Test matches (1918-1939)
• Test matches (1946-1960)
• Test matches (1961-1970)
• Test matches (1971-1980)
• Supertests
• South African rebel tests
• Test matches (1981-1990)
• Test matches (1991-2000)
• Test matches in the 21st century

References

• The Cricket Captains of England by Alan Gibson ISBN 1-85145-395-4
• Wisden Anthology 1864-1900 edited by Benny Green ISBN 0-356-10732-9
• Australia versus England, A Pictorial History of every Test Match since 1877 ISBN 0-670-90323-X
• Cricinfo (http://www.cricinfo.com)
• Cricket Archive (http://www.cricketarchive.com)