The modern kit bags
are appealing and costly too …. Can you associate these primitive implements to
Cricket – to a tour that preceded even the first one of Ashes !!
Australia came back
very strongly in the 2nd Test at Lords humiliating their old enemy
at the home of Cricket – the margin of 405 is too strong…. The players stepped
out of their London base at the five-star Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington to
treat themselves to the late-night snack.The rivalry dates
back to that timeless Test No. 1 played
at Melbourne in March 1877 or even earlier.
Alfred Shaw bowled the first Test delivery to Charles Bannerman, who
went on to become the first Test centurion. Hill had both the first Test wicket
and the first catch. Midwinter picked up the first 5 wicket haul, and Blackham
had the first stumping.Southerton who was among the 22 debutants, is still the oldest Test debutant at 49 years
119 days.
At 1.05 p.m. on 15
March 1877, the first Test began. It was dominated by Charles Bannerman, who
scored the first single in Test history off Alfred Shaw's second ball, was
dropped on ten by Tom Armitage off the same bowler (who himself would drop
Bannerman twice). Wikipedia reports
that on the second day, the attendance of about 4,000 spectators was found to
include "a large number of spectators...supposed to have got in free, by
means of tickets not sold at the gates, but procured illegitimately somewhere
else", and about 500 heads watching over the fence from outside the ground.
Bannerman’s performance so impressed the public that a subscription was
initiated, which raised £83 7s 6d for him.
The report states that Aussie fielding was reckless in contrast with
that of the "well-drilled Englishmen", and the batsmen amused the crowd
by running quick singles after tapping the ball a few yards. Australia won by 45 runs, Captain Dave Gregory, was
given a gold medal by the Victorian Cricket Association, while his team-mates
received silver medals.
The Ashes is a Test
cricket series played between England and Australia. The Ashes are regarded as
being held by the team that most recently won the Test series.The term
originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, The
Sporting Times, immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, their
first Test win on English soil. The obituary stated that English cricket had
died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. The
mythical ashes immediately became associated with the 1882–83 series played in
Australia, before which the English captainIvo Bligh had vowed to "regain
those ashes". The English media therefore dubbed the tour the quest to
regain the Ashes.
After England had
won two of the three Tests on the tour, a small urn was presented to Bligh by a
group of Melbourne women includingFlorence Morphy, whom Bligh married within a
year. The contents of the urn are reputed to be the ashes of a wooden bail, and
were humorously described as "the ashes of Australian cricket.” The urn
has never been the official trophy of the Ashes series, having been a personal
gift to Bligh. However, replicas of the urn are often held aloft by victorious
teams as a symbol of their victory in an Ashes series. Since the 1998–99 Ashes
series, a Waterford Crystal representation of the Ashes urn (called the Ashes
Trophy) has been presented to the winners of an Ashes series as the official
trophy of that series. Whichever side holds the Ashes, the urn remains in the
MCC Museum at Lord's; it has however been taken to Australia to be put on
touring display on two occasions: as part of the Australian Bicentenary
celebrations in 1988, and to accompany the Ashes series in 2006–07.
While there had
already been four major tours by English sides to Australia, the team arranged
and captained by James Lillywhite that left England in November 1876 was the
first to visit as a business venture rather than following an invitation.Three
years earlier WG Grace had led a similar venture, but there had been deep
divisions within the group and Lillywhite's Cricketers Companion had noted that
it was unlikely that any attempt to mix amateurs and professionals would happen
again. Lillywhite's side played eight
odds matches in New Zealand. While there, they lost wicketkeeper Ted Pooley, an
inveterate gambler, who was left languishing in a Christchurch jail after a
betting scandal, and so they returned to Australia with the core 11 players.
The margin of
Australia's victory in that 1stTest was 45 runs, a result remarkably repeated in
the Centenary Test in March 1977.
Though Ashes is associated with 1882-83 tour, there appears to have been
earlier tours too by Australia, not by professionals but by the visiting Aborigine cricket team who amazed
Victorian crowds with bat, ball and boomerang.
MailOnline reports that team of 13 Aborigines visited England in 1868
and played with local sides; and after matches they would impress the crowds by
showing off their traditional skills such as spear-throwing.
MailOnline reports
that an astonishing haul of Aborigine artefacts has come to light which tells
the story of the first ever cricket matches between England and Australia.As
well as playing 47 different cricket matches, the group of 13 Aborigines showed
off traditional pursuits such as throwing spears and boomerangs in their tour
in 1868.
A boomerang is one of a number of mementoes from
the tour which were recently discovered - although the team brought a variety
of tribal objects with them on the 1868 tour, it was long thought that just a
single club, now in the British Museum, had survived - until the discovery of a
long-lost historical collection earlier this month.When the Aborigines toured
England, they were viewed as a curiosity with many spectators wondering how
they would cope with the British climate.The 13 players from Victoria were all
given quirky nicknames such as 'Dick-a-Dick', 'Sundown' and 'Jimmy Mosquito' to
help them appeal to the public.Museum curators have only just found out that
the objects are linked to the 1868 tour.
They spent three
months sailing from Sydney to Gravesend, arriving in May 1868, and then
travelled all around the country facing a variety of teams.The team was coached
by William Hayman, originally from Devon, and Tom Wills, a leading figure in
cricket and Australian football who spoke an Aboriginal language.Reaction to
the players was initially sceptical - The Times described them as 'a travesty
upon cricketing at Lord's', while the Daily Telegraph wrote of Australia:
'Nothing of interest comes from there except gold nuggets and black
cricketers.'However, the players' performance went some way to changing
people's minds, with a crowd of 7,000 turning out to watch their first match
against Surrey at the Oval in London.Overall the side won 14 matches, drew 19
and lost 14, while after matches they would show off their athletic skills to
the crowd with throwing competitions.
Among the team's
leading players were all-rounder Johnny Mullagh, known as 'the W.G. Grace of
Aboriginal cricketers', and fearsome fast bowler Johnny Cuzens. At the end of
the tour, the Sporting Life wrote: 'No eleven has in one season ever played so
many matches so successfully - never playing less than two matches in each
week, and frequently three, bearing an amount of fatigue that now seems
incredible.'The Telegraph added: 'It is highly interesting and curious, to see
mixed in a friendly game on the most historically Saxon part of our island,
representatives of two races so far removed from each other as the modern
Englishman and the Aboriginal Australian.'Although several of them are native
bushmen, and all are as black as night, these Indian fellows are, to all
intents and purposes, clothed and in their right minds.'Despite the success of
the tour, one player died of tuberculosis during the team's stay and two more
were forced to return home early due to ill-health.
The Aborigines
arrived home in February 1869 - but because of new restrictions on their
movements imposed by the Australian government, no Aboriginal team returned to
Britain until 1988.Until recently, the only known memento of their visit was a
club now owned by the Marylebone Cricket Club and on loan to the British
Museum.But a haul of objects which has languished in the Royal Albert Memorial
Museum in Exeter, Devon has now come to light nearly 150 years later.Gaye
Sculthorpe from the British Museum noticed that the items, including
firesticks, spears, and a boomerang, bore the signature of William Hayman, the
tour manager.The team was apparently visiting the area on holiday at the time the
Exeter museum opened, so Hayman donated the mementoes to help start the
collection.
Dr Sculthorpe said:
'Until 9 July 2015, the club associated with Jungunjinuke was the only known
artefact associated with the cricket tour known to have survived.The newly
discovered items include two spears, two spearthrowers, one boomerang, four
clubs and some firesticks. The objects have remained in the museum since then,
but only now has their significance been uncovered.
To have identified
these Aboriginal artefacts is an amazing discovery that adds tangible evidence
to this historic event ~and here is the list of 13 aborgines who pioneered a
visit to England for playing Cricket.
: Johnny Mullagh - traditional
name: Unaarrimin; Bullocky - traditional name: Bullchanach; Sundown -
traditional name: Ballrin; Dick-a-Dick - traditional name: Jungunjinanuke; Johnny
Cuzens - traditional name: Zellanach; King Cole - traditional name:
Bripumyarrimin; Red Cap - traditional name: Brimbunyah; Twopenny - traditional name: Murrumgunarriman;
Charley Dumas - traditional name: Pripumuarraman; Jimmy Mosquito - traditional
name: Grougarrong; Tiger - traditional name: Boninbarngeet; Peter - traditional
name: Arrahmunijarrimun; Jim Crow - traditional name: Jallachniurrimin.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
22nd
July 2015.
