First Test
‘This was probably the most sensational match ever played either in Australia or in England’ pronounced Wisden, while giving it merely 19 lines of coverage. The claim still holds true almost to the same degree 100 years later.
The sky over the Sydney Cricket Ground 100 years ago was very much wider. To stand anywhere in the crowd or even out in the centre now is to be surrounded by huge edifices named after Noble, Bradman, O’Reilly and footballer Clive Churchill. Few could have imagined, in December 1894, how the charming and unpretentious little stands and enclosures would one day be swept away in favour of this circle of giant engineering wonders; and fewer still would have had cause to imagine.
All that survives is the gem of a pavilion, with its ‘showboat’ style, clocktower, minarets and coat of arms, built in 1886, but with the upper decks of the wing structures still a few years in the future.
Moving clockwise, there was a small wooden building serving as the ground secretary’s office, and then an awning offering spectators shade. Here the Northern Stand was soon to be erected, to be superseded in time by the MA Noble Stand.
Further to the right, the Paddington Hill was substantial enough to hold at least a couple of thousand people, and those who had come from the environs of Paddington now had no need to traipse all the way around the perimeter fence to get in. There was now a new entrance off Moore Park Road.
Australia’s team for the first Test. Standing: C Bannerman
(umpire), JC Reedman, JM Blackham (captain), CE McLeod,
CTB Turner, JJ Lyons; seated: GHS Trott, J Darling, G
Giffen, E Jones, FA Iredale; in front: SE Gregory, H Graham
(12th man).
Sydney Cricket Ground during the opening Test match of
the First Great Test Series, when a total attendance of over
60,000 was recorded for the match.
The ‘Bob’ Stand, parallel with the pitch and stretching down the eastern side of the ground, was to be erected some months later, but viewers in that area at least had a wide canvas awning above them to make life tolerable on the hot days. At the end of it was the scoreboard, viewable from quite a distance, but to be much improved upon by Ned Gregory’s progressive construction shortly afterwards.
Then came the Hill, which was merely a wide embankment in 1894, grassy and welcoming, soon to be increased in depth. But the southern end of the ground fell away merely to an open space of natural surface, by way of entrance, with some tents and refreshment booths, where ales could be bought, and lunches for one-and-sixpence (15
), and even patent medicines. There was not yet a Sheridan Stand, and the cycle track around the boundary would not be laid down for another year or so. But the old Brewongle Stand ran the length of the western side, with its small towers to be added later. It was then known simply as the Grandstand, Brewongle being the trade-name of the tearooms within, and when it was eventually demolished in 1977, some old bottles were dug from the foundations, predating even this 1894–95 Ashes series.
The only other structure, apart from the pavilion, to survive into the 1990s from last century is the Ladies’ Stand, but even this was only an architect’s sketch in 1894. In that position stood a pretty little pavilion with long side awning painted in stripes.
This was the circumference that the Australian and English cricketers of 1894–95 knew, with the pitch made from Merri Creek soil, soon to be superseded by Bulli soil after the Merri soil had so misbehaved after rain. The pitch was rolled by true horsepower, the animal equipped with special protective leather shoes for its hooves. And surmounting all were the colourful flags, a red one bearing ‘SCG’ now fluttering from the pavilion for the first time to assert that this was no longer the semi-anonymous ‘Association Cricket Ground’ but the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Jack Blackham spun the coin after Stoddart had remarked that ‘Someone will be swearing directly, Jack. I hope it’s you!’ Blackham, though, won the toss, and word slowly circulated around the crowd of 11,000.
He had only just been confirmed as Australia’s captain, having been in a huddle with Giffen and Turner, fellow selectors, in the pavilion to decide the issue. They left Harry Graham out of the XI, and Stoddart omitted Philipson and Humphreys from his tour party of 13. The sun shone brightly, with a few puffy white clouds sailing by, and the umpires, Charlie Bannerman and Jim Phillips, were on their way to the middle, followed by the Englishmen and Australian openers Jack Lyons (one of five South Australians) and Harry Trott. Richardson strode out his run-up, and Peel prepared to take the other end, bowling with the Hill behind him. Play started at 12.12 pm.
All the early doubts about Tom Richardson were now swept aside as the black-haired heavyweight thundered in and bowled Lyons off his pad 10 minutes into the match, the ball running on down to the boundary. Soon, Trott was out almost identically, the off stump being uprooted and broken. Next ball, the first of Joe Darling’s long and distinguished Test career, Richardson adjusted his line for the left-hander and burst a yorker through him, the ball taking with it the middle and off stumps. Three down for 21 through sheer force of effort on a blameless pitch.
Giffen and the tall Iredale steadied the innings, though a better pick-up by Briggs at cover point and better glovework by Gay as the throw came in would have seen the end of Iredale early in his innings. Richardson was getting the ball to lift off not too short a length, and Giffen felt he detected a ridge in the pitch. Whether it existed or not, the oldstager held on, taking occasional fours and leaving Stoddart to explore other bowlers: Briggs for Peel, Lockwood for Richardson as lunch loomed. Australia made it safely to the interval at 78 for 3, but only just, for Lockwood had jumped a ball at Giffen’s bat-handle and Gay, the keeper, to that infernal cry ‘Catch it!’, could not hold the chance high to his left.
The strong, reliable Richardson bowled again after lunch, but Giffen was comfortable, and even straight-drove Briggs into the crowd for a five. The accident-prone Lockwood ricked his shoulder in fielding a hard-hit ball and now had to leave the field, Turner substituting for the opposition until Philipson could run on. The match was moving Australia’s way as Brockwell and Stoddart himself took punishment from Giffen and Iredale, and it took another change, this time Francis Ford, the tall left-armer, to bring an end to this fourth-wicket stand when it was worth 171. Iredale (81) lifted him to mid-off and Stoddart parried the high ball and pouched the catch, ending a 2½-hour partnership.
Enter, after the tea stoppage, the boylike figure of Syd Gregory—‘Tich’—a special favourite at this ground where he had actually been born, in the groundsman’s cottage at the back of the pavilion, his father, Ned, being the SCG curator. Young Syd, when in his early teens, had fallen badly from the moving two-ton roller and was bedridden for months. But he was tough and came from a great and proud cricket dynasty, and he was playing for his country at 20, at Lord’s of all places. The trouble was that so far, in 11 Test innings, he had reached double figures only once (57 at Lord’s in 1893), having batted everywhere between No. 4 and No. 11 in the order. Here he was again at No. 6; his fielding in the covers was unsurpassed; but when would he get some runs to substantiate his high reputation?
Giffen hit Richardson to the leg boundary to bring up his only Test hundred, having escaped at 90 when Gay juggled and dropped a catch off the same bowler; and now Gregory felt he was seeing the ball well enough, and the pair put 53 runs on the board in one half-hour period, mainly at the expense of the two left-armers, Briggs and Peel, before it was decided that they should play carefully for stumps.
At 5.50 pm, with 10 minutes remaining, Brockwell broke through for England, finding the edge, Ford, who had dropped Gregory on 50, holding the catch. Giffen had batted for 4½ hours for his 161, his defence demoralising and his driving controlled and profitable. He stroked 22 fours and a five.
Reedman stayed with Gregory to the close, when the little chap was 85 and the total 346 for 5. Lockwood’s absence had hindered England, but had Gay not suffered such an unfortunate day behind the stumps, the tourists might yet have been in control. The wicketkeeper, who had kept goal for England’s soccer team, must have felt as if he’d let in six against Scotland. There was little left of his confidence.
The buzzing attendance of the opening day was more than doubled, to 24,000, on the Saturday. They were ‘all well dressed, well conducted, with the one topic absorbing the attention of all, and the one wish dominant—a good match, and a win for Australia’. Their team’s recovery from yesterday’s shocking start had radiated feelings of well-being.
Lockwood was still unable to take the field, and his Surrey teammate Brockwell was soon cursing himself for missing a catch at slip as Richardson bounced one at Reedman. The batsman soon took another lifter, one report said on the head, another on the heart. Either way it stirred him to lift a ball from Peel over the fence and into the animated audience.
Gregory was now 99, and pegged down. Finally, he got his favourite cut shot to the ball, which sped away for two, and his thousands of admirers roared, and went on roaring.
His next three partners, though, soon went: Reedman, in the next over, nicked a slow teaser from Peel to Ford at slip; Charlie McLeod made 15 before Richardson raced in and yorked him; and Turner hung around for a quarter of an hour for a single before touching Peel through to a greatly relieved wicketkeeper. Australia were now 409 for 8, and England’s opening batsmen would have been gearing themselves for what seemed an imminent task Theirs was to be a long wait.
Blackham, the 40-year-old skipper, in his 35th and, as it transpired, final Test match, chose this day to make the highest score of his Test career, 74 in 86 minutes. In that time he and Gregory hurtled along at two runs a minute, setting an Australian ninth-wicket record of 154 which was still unbeaten 100 years later. Gregory sped to 150, and Blackham raised the 500 by Australia for the first time in a home Test. The Englishmen were exasperated, particularly when the wretched Gay put another catch down, Gregory at 131, off the labouring Peel.
But if Peel was labouring, how much more sweat was Richardson expending? The fast bowler was into his 56th over of the innings before the last wicket was to fall, taking 5 for 181, he and Brockwell taking on the overs which the injured Lockwood might have bowled.
There was great applause for little Gregory when he passed Giffen’s 161, and the only hope England felt concerned Blackham’s condition. So hectic was the runmaking that the veteran had to call for a drink, which he sipped through his puffing.
Next came Charlie Bannerman’s 165 in the first of all Tests. In surpassing that, Gregory became the highest scorer in a Test in Australia. They ran the cheekiest of singles, and Richardson seemed to be going at the knees as he bowled on and on, his pace much reduced.
Gregory got to 194 and then lofted Briggs out towards the long-off fence. Ward ran towards the ball, got a hand to it, dropped it, and it went to the fence. Next ball, Gregory had his double-century, square-cutting Ford for three after four hours at the crease. The reception given him by ‘his’ crowd was thunderous, and went on for almost five minutes, straw hats curving through the air, parasols jigging up and down, handkerchiefs waving, vocal chords straining. Might the delightful midget now go on and get a triple-century? After all, these Tests were being played without time limit.
Stoddart brought himself back on, and without further ado Gregory slammed him deep on the leg side, where the reliable Yorkshire hands of Peel secured the catch. SE Gregory 201, with 28 fours; Australia 563 for 9, a new Test innings record. Jones was rough on Stoddart before Blackham’s extraordinary knock ended, Richardson finding the energy to cut a sizable breakback into his stumps at speed: 586 all out.
Gregory’s admirers were busy in those last minutes: he was soon the glad recipient of a collection of just over £100, which included £25 from the ground trustees, £5 from Melbourne Cricket Club, and £20 from Mr Toohey the brewer. George Houston Reid, the corpulent NSW Premier and future Prime Minister of Australia, handed over the princely sum, leaving the young batsman to gasp ‘Thank you’ and no more. He had just whispered, white-faced, to a friend: What’ll I say? I can’t make a speech.’ He didn’t need to. It was enough that he could place the English bowling to all sections of the pickets, no stroke more pleasing than his angelic late-cut.
The only steadying note midst the Gregory euphoria was the reminder that Australia had been sent reeling to 3 for 21 by Richardson on the first day before Giffen and Iredale played their superb hands. Also, Blackham’s support made Gregory’s 201 feasible. And yet the presentation was to Gregory alone. Well, he was the only Sydney man of the four batting heroes; and Australia was still a loose bundle of separate colonies. ‘He got the cash,’ wrote one critic, ‘they had to be content with praise.’ But little Syd was such an agreeable fellow that he almost certainly saw to it that his teammates were not empty-handed.
So at last England got to the wicket, and the long exertions in the field showed in MacLaren’s early lapse in concentration—caught at cover from a poor stroke off Turner—and Stoddart’s tired tread as he took his place.
Jones, the Merv Hughes of his day, steamed in as if to prove he could do anything Richardson could do. But the Englishmen held him at bay, Albert Ward calm and correct, looking for his best shot, the cut, but taking no undue chances. The runs began to flow—until Giffen came on, applying an immediate choke. His stranglehold in the South Australia match was still fresh in English minds, and it may have caused Stoddart’s downfall as he played with unusual hesitancy at Giffen and edged into Jones’s coarse miner’s hands at slip: 43 for 2.
Blackham introduced Harry Trott’s legbreaks as Brown tried to settle in. He had been bothered by them in the Victoria match; but now he fiddled and fudged and eventually hit Trott to the fence, and Turner was reintroduced.
A run-out spoiled it for England. With 35 added, a mix-up as Lyons misfielded and recovered saw the end of Brown, and it needed some sensible play by Brockwell to escort the always watchful Ward through to the close of play, with the gloom encompassing the ground, rain about to fall after long threatening, and England, 130 for 3, very much in second place. It had been a day which would long be associated with Syd Gregory’s masterpiece. It was also the day on which news reached Sydney of the death, on December 3, way across the Pacific, in Samoa, of the tubercular Robert Louis Stevenson, whose spirit perhaps imbued this Sydney Test match with a Jekyll-and-Hyde quality.
Rain fell on that pitch on Sunday and again before resumption on the Monday, when the crowd was back to 11,000, still a good company. The surface was soft but not dangerous, and the greasy ball made the bowlers’ task difficult. Still, Ward, 67 at the start, seemed to believe he should hit out rather than hang around for the impossible delivery, and he fell to a catch at long-on with only eight more runs to his name. This compensated Turner, who had seen a chest-high catch from Brockwell put down by McLeod at cover before the luncheon break.
The sun had dried the ball and firmed the pitch to a dangerous stickiness after the interval, and Harry Trott’s legbreaks seemed the biggest problem for England. After Iredale’s cool catch in the deep to get Ward out, Peel benefited from yet another catching error in this strange match, this time by Jones at slip, though it mattered little, Gregory, who could do no wrong, catching the left-hander over his shoulder running at mid-off: 155 for 5.
Still over 400 runs in arrears, England found some relief in a Brockwell-Ford stand which saw the pitch ease slightly as 56 were added, Ford batting in his best Lord’s manner, Brockwell holding himself in check, taking two hours over his 49. Ford went first, stumped not exactly elegantly by Blackham, who then caught Brockwell, standing well back to Jones’s thunderbolts, the fast bowler’s first Test wicket: 211 for 7. The compulsory follow-on loomed as a certainty.
One end of the pitch was appreciably more cut-up than the other, and it may have been Blackham’s kindness or simple good fortune for England that Jones was not bowling into the rougher end. As it was, conditions seemed to be easing as Briggs made much more impact with bat than ball, scoring a priceless 57 in two hours. Lockwood at last came into the match with a handy 18, and it was while he and Briggs were resisting that a quick delivery from part-time bowler Lyons split Blackham’s thumb, a serious enough injury to have tangible repercussions later in this epic match.
Gay was glad of a return on his generosity to the Australians when England were in the field. Now he himself was reprieved at slip, and with Briggs increasing in confidence with every over, their ninth-wicket stand amounted to 73, the best of the entire innings. Local pundits were now complaining about the absence of Trumble from this match, and left-arm fast man Coningham. They would not have let England off in these conditions.
Giffen got Briggs in the end, with one which kept low, and Gay (33) was caught at cover by Gregory without further addition. England were bowled out for 325, 261 behind, and were obliged to follow on, though there was no time left that evening to start their second innings.
One of Stoddart’s concerns now was the growth of grass that slowed the SCG outfield and probably livened up the pitch. But at least the weather was cloudy rather than fiercely sunny, and the pitch was thus quiet. Sawdust was still in evidence at the end of the bowlers’ run-ups, and the sight of Turner and Jones with the new ball could have been daunting to England’s openers, MacLaren and Ward, with their side 261 in arrears. Nonetheless, MacLaren, always looking for a moneymaking opportunity, plunged £4 on his team at this point at 50–1.
Blackham, his thumb badly cut and the bone damaged, would never keep wicket for Australia again. McLeod took over.
The Lancashire pair played warily, and only two boundary hits came in the first hour as Giffen and Turner probed. MacLaren was deceived and bowled by Giffen at 26, and Ward should have gone when he was 28, McLeod behind the stumps snatching at a thin edge off Giffen. It was one of history’s most expensive misses, and only the most philosophical were reflecting that Blackham’s absence merely offset England’s loss of Lockwood through most of Australia’s innings of 586.
Stoddart batted as cautiously as he had ever done, partly through the needs of the side and partly by way of example to those who would follow. He knew there was no need to influence Ward, who was as sound and solid as Manchester Town Hall.
They eased the Australian stranglehold after lunch, Stoddart once even tapping Giffen to the fence twice in an over. But with 36 to his name, the captain hit Turner to cover and Giffen took a low catch: 115 for 3.
This reunited Ward with Brown, and the total grew—after Brown had overcome his early suspicions about the pitch. By tea England’s score had risen to 183, and Ward was 98.
Australia could not do without McLeod’s bowling any longer, so Reedman took over as wicketkeeper after tea. Ward’s century came with a leg boundary off the eternal Giffen, in only 197 minutes, and was well received, for he was regarded as an amiable and modest man. Half-an-hour later, when he and Brown had added 102, Ward was bowled by a beauty from Giffen as he played back, just as the grey sky gave way to a burst of sunlight. England were now 44 behind overall.
Brockwell, the star of the 1894 English batting season, now played another useful innings, though he soon lost Brown, caught by Jones, arms outstretched at mid-on, for 53. Brockwell and Peel steered England through to close of play, passing the sinister 261 figure which brought them at long last into credit, every run worth two from now on. In this match of fielding disasters, the Australians and their supporters could barely believe it when Jones spilt a simple catch off the leading edge of Peel’s bat towards the end. It was, of course, only apparent after the match just how crucial every run and every catch would turn out to be.
Wednesday brought an air of slight disarray, what with McLeod back behind the stumps for Australia, and Turner late, necessitating a second substitute in the field, none other than Briggs, who had yet to bat. Over in Britain, a delay in the cable service meant that the last three days’ cricket would eventually all come through at once, causing readers to read the story over and over again in disbelief
Australia struck an important blow when Jones, on a fuller length, broke through Brockwell with 22 added. Six runs later, Peel stunned a ball from Giffen only to see it dribble back and unseat the bails: 296 for 6, England 35 ahead.
Briggs joined Ford, and it was here that England finally seemed to have a chance of making some sort of match of it, for they put on 89. They ought to have been separated almost at once, for McLeod muffed a stumping chance against Ford off Giffen, whose heart must have been aching, and substitute Graham wobbled about under a skyer from Briggs, off Trott, and grounded the catch. Ford hit Jones hard when he pitched short, and Australian frowns deepened as the same batsman stabbed his bat at the ball when Turner almost had him playing onto his stumps. Dame Fortune now seemed to speak with an English accent.
It was 344 for 6 at lunch, and afterwards Ford launched into Trott and landed the ball over the fence in the direction of the tennis courts. Briggs broke with protocol by taking two boundaries off a Giffen over, and England seemed to have taken command when McLeod, given another spell with his medium-pacers, took a soft return catch from Ford when the Middlesex left-hander was two short of his half-century and then bowled Briggs for a priceless 42.
Tailend runs are always the hardest to countenance by the fielding side, and the Australians now had to wait while Lockwood, a good batsman, and Gay mustered a further 22, and Richardson, the flusickened No. 11, made a dozen highly significant runs. With Trott’s legspin accounting for Lockwood and Gay, England were out at last in the 182nd over, nine overs more than Australia’s mammoth first innings. Their total of 437 meant that the home side needed 177 for victory. That was less than a third of their first-innings score. And the pitch, thanks to the rain, was holding up and not powdering dangerously. Giffen’s 75 overs made it 118 for the match, still a record for Australia against England.
With two hours to bat, Lyons started as if he intended to get the 177 singlehanded that evening. In 15 minutes he crashed his way to 25 out of 26. And then Richardson bowled him as he aimed a wild swing. Giffen, showing no great tiredness from his bowling stint of 75 overs (4 for 164), came in at No. 3 and made the greatest contrast to Lyons, pushing and poking, survival being uppermost in his mind. Trott felt the same, and they must both have been relieved to see Richardson walk from the field, exhausted by his illness.
Harry Trott suddenly went after Peel, but merely edged him into Gay’s gloves: 45 for 2. That brought in young left-handed Darling, on a ‘king pair’. He was soon into his stride, though he needed to resist Briggs’s derisory high-floating teasers, and by the end of the fifth day Australia were steady again and well on course to making the formality requirement of 177: 113 for 2, Darling 44, Giffen, hampered by a blow on the knee from Lockwood, 30.
As one contented Australian put it, it was ‘a guinea to a gooseberry on Australia’ to win: only 64 more needed, wise old Giffen and the brilliant youngster Darling in harness, and, if needed, Iredale (81 in the first innings) and Gregory (201) to follow, plus the two allrounders; Richardson was still below par, and all the other England bowlers had so far managed only six wickets between them in almost 200 overs. The Australian cricketers went down to breakfast at the Baden Baden Hotel, Coogee with great anticipation.
‘It’s all right, boys. The weather is beautiful!’ roared Ernie Jones, who was first out of bed that morning.
Giffen was confident too as he looked through the window at the bright blue sky—until he bumped into his skipper. Blackham, who had worried about the weather throughout the previous day, had a face ‘long as a coffee-pot’, and forecast bad things as they took off for the SCG, the carriage leaving deep furrows in the soft ground. It had rained heavily during the night. The uncovered pitch was saturated, transformed into a batsman’s nightmare.
Some of Stoddart’s men, feeling the match was lost, had got drunk on the Wednesday night, and it now fell to the captain to get the booziest of them all, Bobby Peel, sobered up for action. He was put under a cold shower and told of the duty which lay before him now that a blazing sun on the wet pitch had given England an unexpected opportunity to fight back for a victory which had seemed utterly impossible for the previous few days. Peel, as oblivious as any to the night’s rainfall, at first thought somebody must have watered the wicket. As it gradually dawned on his befuddled brain that England were back in with a chance, he is supposed to have said to his skipper: ‘Give me the ball, Mr Stoddart, and I’ll get t’boogers out before loonch!’
In his fresh excitement, the sandy-haired Yorkshireman forgot the lingering discomfort which was the legacy of the extraction of five teeth just before the Test match.
With the late arrival of Lockwood as well as Peel, the start was delayed slightly, with Blackham’s generous forbearance, the pitch becoming more glutinous with every minute. How the tabloid newspapers of today would have relished such a story: TEST DELAYED WHILE ENGLAND BOWLER SOBERED UP.
Stoddart placed a close-up field and entrusted Peel and Richardson with the first few overs. Under 2000 people were present, making the SCG seem like ‘some silent cemetery’ after the previous five days of large crowds and incessant applause. For the first time, a match had entered a sixth day.
Peel beat Giffen and Gay whipped off the bails, but the Australian had his back foot firmly anchored behind the crease. The Yorkshireman, despite his aching head, was pitching a perfect length, spinning widely and variously and getting spiteful lift. Richardson too was making the ball leap, only at a disconcerting pace.
Giffen edged a four from one which kept low, and Darling, recognising the dangers, bravely hit Peel out towards long-on and over the fence for a five. Bucketfuls of extra sawdust were brought to the middle and almost every ball saw the batsman walking out to pat down the disturbance in the muddy pitch.
With 53 to his name, and hero status his for a further hour or less of successful hitting, Joe Darling went after Peel again, lofted the ball into the deep, and saw Brockwell race in from in front of the two-and-sixpenny seats to cling to a very important catch.
News of the dramatic circumstances had swept across Sydney, and cabs and carriages were now being pulled at the gallop across Moore Park. Some of the latecomers were in time to see Giffen survive an lbw shout from Peel and then a catch to point off the same bowler, Brown’s movement hampered by the wet turf. It made little difference, for Giffen was lbw to Briggs’s first ball, slipping as he played at it: 135 for 4, last man 41; 42 needed.
The tall Iredale and the short Gregory tried, with nimble footwork, to get to the pitch of each ball, and another dozen runs came, with England experiencing some concern when Gay had a finger dislocated. The odds were still on an Australian win.
But Briggs lured Iredale into getting under a ball which climbed high before dropping into the bowler’s grateful hands: 147 for 5. Surely Gregory, the first-innings double-century hero, would see Australia home? He had moved on to 16 when, trying to run Peel backward of point, he touched the ball into Gay’s gloves: 158 for 6: 19 only now wanted.
MacLaren, at second slip, dropped Reedman, but the miss was not costly, for the South Australian now stepped out to Peel and missed. Leslie Gay had yet another accident, failing to take the ball cleanly; but his luck was in this time: it rebounded from his chest and broke the wicket. For ever more it would show in the book as ‘st Gay b Peel’.
The slightly neurotic Blackham was now striding up and down the small players’ balcony muttering ‘Cruel luck’ over and over. Behind him stood a stunned Giffen, singlet and shirt in hand, and Lyons, sighing at what might have been had his innings not ended so abruptly the evening before, and Harry Graham, head in hands, a helpless twelfth man who had once survived for two hours against Peel on a wet pitch.
Still, Charlie Turner knew a thing or two about batting and could still carry Australia home with a few well-struck hits. He made two runs, but with 16 still needed, he hit a catch to Briggs at cover off Peel. The excitable little fieldsman, who only minutes before had been nodding his head and clicking his tongue after MacLaren’s fielding error, was greatly elated by his own catch.
Ernie Jones now had a go at finishing the match with some hard hitting on this near-impossible pitch, but with only a single to his name he belted Briggs back over his head only to be caught by MacLaren. Nine down for 162; 15 needed; Blackham, with his painful thumb bandaged, walking mournfully to the crease to join Charlie McLeod.
The two slow left-armers have almost completed the job for England. Will their nerves hold? Will the fielders be up to the task if catches go flying? The ball is dispatched unerringly towards off stump. McLeod spars; takes a single. Stoddart peers anxiously around the field, at the batsmen’s rigid countenances, at Peel’s round face, so recently florid with alcohol.
Blackham pokes his bat forward and winces at the pain in his hand. Gay, fearful of letting through byes, gets his gloves over-deliberately in line. The ball spits from the treacherous surface.
Four of the 15 runs are banked. Then Peel bobs in again and drops the ball on a length. Bearded Blackham pushes out at it. It comes back towards the bowler. England, 261 behind on first innings, can now win the match if the resurrected Peel pockets the catch. He does. England have won by 10 runs, two minutes before lunch on the sixth day. They have won a match seemingly impossible to win.
The players were cheered generously as they filed back into the pavilion, and the congratulations came from all quarters. Over lunch, Phil Sheridan of the SCG Trust (whose tour guarantee was already covered), proposed a warm toast to the English team and its captain, who in turn spoke appreciatively of his players, who were, he repeated, a ‘team of triers’. He freely acknowledged that the elements had suddenly given England a chance, but felt that much credit was still due to Peel (6 for 67) and Briggs (3 for 25) for taking full advantage. He congratulated the Australians on the manner in which they had taken their shock defeat. But Stoddart was clearly moved by the efforts of his own men in this ‘uphill’ game. Typically, he came back generously on the matter of Australia’s ill-fortune with the rain, acknowledging that the weather alone had robbed them of victory. ‘There’ll be a good deal said about this match,’ he predicted. And he wasn’t wrong.
Bad news was on its way for Walter Humphreys, who did not play in this—or any other—Test match: his brother George, who had also played for Sussex, died during the fifth day of this Test.
Meanwhile, down in the small Victorian township of Jeparit, on the very day that this thrilling Test drew to its muddy conclusion, with its new world record aggregate of runs (1514), Australia’s first great statesman, Robert Gordon Menzies, had chosen this Alice-in-Wonderland day of cricket on which to be born.
The primitive SCG scoreboard displays the sensational final
innings details.
Sydney Cricket Ground, December 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 1894
Toss: Australia
Debuts: Australia—J Darling, FA Iredale, E Jones, CE McLeod, JC Reedman
England—JT Brown, FGJ Ford, LH Gay, AC MacLaren
12th Men: H Graham (Aust) and H Philipson (Eng)
Umpires: C Bannerman and J Phillips
Attendances: 10,917, 24,120, 11,606, 8034, 6168, 1268. Total: 62,113 Receipts £2832
Close of play: 1st day Aust 5–346 (Gregory 85, Reedman 4); 2nd day Eng 3-130 (Ward
67, Brockwell 18); 3rd day Eng 325 all out; 4th day Eng (2) 4–268 (Brockwell 20,
Peel 9); 5th day Aust (2) 2-113 (Giffen 30, Darling 44).
ENGLAND WON BY 10 RUNS
