Out-door Games: Cricket and Golf/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
Australian Cricket
The first Australian eleven that visited England came over in 1878, and since that time there have been visits from elevens in 1880, 1882, 1884, 1886, 1888, 1890, 1893, 1896, and 1899—ten in twenty-one years. Previously to 1878 three English elevens had been to Australia, but the two first had invariably played against odds, and the colonial cricket had been of a very primitive nature. It is true that the third eleven, under the management of W. G. Grace, found the colonials vastly improved; still for all purposes of inquiry we may take 1878 as a starting-place. During the last twenty-one years, in fact, so many have been the visits exchanged between different elevens of England and Australia that international cricket has come to be a regular feature, and it is certain that neither side can give any points away to the other.
It may appear strange that Australia, with a total population not quite so large as London's, should be able to stand on an equality with England; but I, for one, for several reasons, am not surprised that such is the case. England has four months' cricket weather, Australia has eight; England has to crowd a great number of matches into her four months, Australia plays comparatively few matches, but can and does devote much more time to practice. Till recently there was a great difference between Australian and English wickets, and the Australian ones were so good that bowlers were forced to practise and had the opportunity of so doing; the result has been that they have learned more dodges, have greater powers of showing variety of pace and break, and on the whole Australian bowling has been and still is better than English. First-class cricket in Australia is more concentrated. It is entirely in three districts, and even in three towns—Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide—and Adelaide has only sprung into cricket fame during the last ten years. This enables the authorities to choose their best elevens with greater facility, as they have opportunities of observing each man's skill, and there are not, of course, nearly so many players. Lastly, the Australians are our own flesh and blood, and have the same intense keenness for the game, which may be said to have been bred in them.
Each country, as will be shown later on, has learned a great deal from the other; but there is one essential difference between the two countries which must always exist, and that is the question of climate and its effect on wickets. The Australian wickets are so perfect, because for cricket purposes they may be said never to have rain, and the result is hard, fast, and deadly true ground. In England in 1899 we have had very much the same sort of wicket, but taking a series of years there is considerable variety in this country. This fact explains the phenomenon: English batting is on the whole more elastic in its nature, and can adapt itself to more different varieties of wickets, than the Australian. The same cause has made the Australian bowling better than the English. In 1899 we had a capital object-lesson. The whole season, after the month of May, the ground was dry and the wickets hard and fast; the result has been to show that bowling cannot be made sufficiently good to enable matches to be finished in three days.
The Australian batting of 1878 was, taken all through, of a rough and unscientific nature, but a year's cricket in England made a vast change in the whole stamp of colonial batting. There was one very fine bat in the person of Charles Bannerman, and there was a batsman of style in the person of Murdoch, but that may be said to be all. Their matches were won by the deadliness of their bowling and the activity of their fielding. The smooth wickets of Australia, as I have remarked in another chapter, showed them that it was possible to dispense with a long-stop, and this was one thing that we learned from them. Another point that we learned from them was in regard to bowling. Though Spofforth was not then the bowler of such variety as he afterwards became, he was more variable than any English bowler as far as pace was concerned, and he was the originator of a style of bowler of which, on the whole, in England, Lohmann of Surrey has been the most conspicuous example. In the same way, a great deal of the modern scientific Australian batting has been due to the opportunities given to the Australians of observing English play. After twenty-one years' international cricket it may be said that on hard wickets—of which, on the whole, the Australians have more experience than we—they play a more winning game; on soft wickets the Englishmen, having greater opportunities of practice, would probably win a majority of matches.
There has not in England been quite enough certainty in the way of weather to establish once and for all a certain stamp or class of play; I mean by this, that if we had nine or ten years of weather such as we have had in 1899 we should probably have been driven to learn more of the Australian stamp of bowling than we have, though we have gone some way in this direction already. In the same way, if in Australia they could have greater facilities for practising batting on slow bowlers' wickets, their stamp or style of batting would be altered. The question arises strongly in my mind as to how will the Australians play and with what success if we get wickets of a wet summer like 1888. It is a curious fact that between 1878 and 1890 the Australians seemed to have provided themselves in the way of batting with certain hitters who are useful on slow wickets in a way that they have not done since then. In 1882 they had Massie, McDonnell, and Bonner; in 1884 they had McDonnell and Bonner; in 1886, Bonner; and in 1888, McDonnell: but in 1899 and, in fact, ever since 1890, with the exception of Lyons, they have not brought any conspicuous hitters. There is one simple reason why, as it appears to me, fast, vigorous batting is likely in Australia to die a natural death, and this reason is what I call the detestable system of playing matches to a finish, regardless of time. One side wins the toss, goes in to bat on a hot day, and stays in as long as it can on wickets like the proverbial billiard-table. Time is no object, and that side develops a painfully slow style of play. In some conversation I had this year with Howell, the Australian bowler, I said, "I cannot imagine how you ever get a good batsman out!" His reply was to the effect that it would be impossible, were it not for the fact that they sometimes got themselves out. In other words, given a man of inexhaustible patience, a straight bat, and a good eye, there is no reason why he should ever be got out. Anybody who saw Noble bat in this year's test match at Manchester will see that this is no exaggeration. It is not possible in England to devote more than three days to any match, and I, for one, maintain that it would be the ruin of the game if more time were given. A continuation of summers like 1899 and no alteration of the rules would produce an absolute deadlock of international cricket in this country. I may say here, that the same deadlock would exist in English cricket under the same circumstances, and the hands of our legislators would therefore be forced to make changes and new rules. I will speak of this in another chapter, but in writing about Australian cricket, I cannot help wondering what will be the effect in Australia of narrowing the bat, raising the wickets, or of any other alterations of the law. I suppose it is possible that in Australia they may refuse to abide by the latest alterations, and of course they are at perfect liberty to do so in their own country; but if international cricket is to take place at all, it must take place under the latest rules formulated by the M.C.C., or else there will be an end of it. This would be a great misfortune from every point of view. There may be shortcomings and drawbacks in the perhaps too frequently recurring exchange of visits between the Australian and English cricketers; but remembering the splendid matches that have taken place, the interesting nature of the play, and the keen rivalry that is inevitably brought about between two great representative nations of the English-speaking race, we must all be forced to admit that, if international pricket were abolished, a great interest would be taken away from the game. As Englishmen we may perhaps speak too much from one point of view, but I for one think that the dead uniformity of wicket which is the vogue in Australia tends to make the game monotonous, and lacking in the interest which comes from the different pace and quality of English wickets. In England, though we are in a cycle of dry seasons, which has made an exception lately, we have a variety of wickets, and this has enabled us to introduce batsmen like Grace, Shrewsbury, A. J. Webbe, Jackson, Steel, and A. P. Lucas, who may be trusted frequently to show us first-rate cricket on all sorts of wickets; from what I have seen of Australian cricket here they have given us hitters like McDonnell and Bonner, but not men who play the game as scientific batsmen on soft wickets. I do not say this in any unfriendly spirit; it is only natural that they should only be able to play as the circumstances of their climate permit them. I only repeat that on the whole it is a misfortune that Australian weather and climate should stereotype Australian batsmen into one mould. This cannot be helped; but there is a reverse side to the picture, and that is that the Australian climate must in the long run produce bowlers of greater variety than we can in England. Bowlers of the Jemmy Grundy, Mead, and Hearne type are impossible in Australia—as they say there, they play batsmen in. The same condition of things has made Australians pay greater attention to fielding than do the English. It is difficult in Australia to get a side out; to do so at all, you must bowl well, field well, and, very important too, you must not miss catches. On a really difficult English wicket. Mead and Jack Hearne do not require much assistance from the field, they pound away on the stumps, and the ground enables them to bowl men out clean; and on the whole, therefore, I think it may be stated, as a general principle, that Australian out-cricket, by which I mean bowling and fielding, is superior to English, while English batting on all wickets is better than Australian.
What will be the effect on Australian cricket if an alteration in the laws is made that will bring about fewer runs, and no drawn matches, unless produced by bad weather? I venture to think that the effect will be of even greater benefit to Australian cricket than it will be to English. If we had had wet summers like 1879, 1888, lately, it is probable that no demand for cricket reform would ever have arisen; but there is practically no variety in Australian wickets; consequently matches have to be played to a finish, and the bowling, good as it is, is not good enough for the batting. Any reform of cricket law has for its object a levelling up of attack and defence—in other words, of batting and bowling. It must be an advantage to any game to possess this equality, whether played in England or Australia, and furthermore I feel convinced that Australians themselves will ultimately prefer matches to be finished in three days. We must look to the future; in Australia the number of cricketers will increase, more matches will be played, and though their season is far longer than ours, time may possibly become more an object than it is now.
There is another reason: we are far too dependent on gate-money: but still, if only for the sake of old cricketers who love the game as well as for the general public, cricket ought and must be an interesting, or in other words, an elegant and picturesque game to watch. The Australian system of playing matches to a finish must tend to produce a dull, sticky, monotonous style of batting. I fully admit the graceful freedom of Trumper and the bold attractive style of Worrall, but generally speaking the batting style of the Australian batsmen of 1899 was slow and monotonous. It was very sound and good, but if that style continues and becomes general, it must inevitably result in the public becoming indifferent. The world of history has lately been discussing the question of picturesque style in writing history. It has been stated by some most accurate chroniclers that it is dangerous for a historian to write like Macaulay and Froude; I suppose they think history should only be written for dull specialists and students, and not for the general public, to whom some historical knowledge is both useful and interesting. Mr. Andrew Lang has replied and opposed this theory in his own inimitable way. Mr. Lang is an enthusiastic lover of cricket, and he will, I feel confident, support me when I assert that style ought to be a consideration in cricket, as it is in writing history. If the system of playing matches to a finish is firmly established, style will suffer, and cricket will suffer too.
The really great cricketer is great on all sorts and conditions of wicket: the great Australian will play well on the more variable English wicket, the great Englishman will do his part on the easy Australian wickets. During the last nine or ten years, however, in Australia there has practically been no sort of equality between batting and bowling. As Mr. Howell said, "You can't get a good batsman out; he gets himself out sometimes." This is beginning to be true even in England, and though a wet season will produce a change, wet seasons are impossible in Australia. Though the present state of things is cricket, it is not cricket of the best and most interesting type; and in the interest of the game 'twere better that some change should be made.